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<p class="p-2-title week">Family Planning 2020</p> | <p class="p-2-title week">Family Planning 2020</p> | ||
<p>Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) is a well-known global partnership that supports women’s rights related to sexual and reproductive health. They are a subsection of the United Nations Foundation and are famous for partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to spread birth control information and awareness. By 2020, they want to expand access to family planning “information, services, and supplies to women in 69 of the world’s poorest countries”. <a href="javascript:showMore('USA')" id="linkUSA">Read More >></a><span id="moreTextUSA" style="display:none">FP2020 has contacts all around the world working to increase access to birth control, and our team felt they would be a perfect partner to help us expand our outreach. We sent a request for a meeting and after a few weeks, Madeleine Dimarco reached out to schedule us an interview with Martyn Smith, Managing Director of FP2020. Martyn’s primary role in FP2020 is to work closely with countries to establish contacts in “civil society, government, donor agencies, and private sectors”. Martyn described relations with numerous groups around the globe, including local agents familiar with the regulatory environment of medications. Martyn offered to connect us with those local agents to better understand what steps are needed to actually get out product to market in our countries of interest. Most medications require rigorous testing, but the requirements vary country to country. We hope that this relationship will allow us to plan for future testing as well as gauge interest in our method coming to market.</span></p> | <p>Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) is a well-known global partnership that supports women’s rights related to sexual and reproductive health. They are a subsection of the United Nations Foundation and are famous for partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to spread birth control information and awareness. By 2020, they want to expand access to family planning “information, services, and supplies to women in 69 of the world’s poorest countries”. <a href="javascript:showMore('USA')" id="linkUSA">Read More >></a><span id="moreTextUSA" style="display:none">FP2020 has contacts all around the world working to increase access to birth control, and our team felt they would be a perfect partner to help us expand our outreach. We sent a request for a meeting and after a few weeks, Madeleine Dimarco reached out to schedule us an interview with Martyn Smith, Managing Director of FP2020. Martyn’s primary role in FP2020 is to work closely with countries to establish contacts in “civil society, government, donor agencies, and private sectors”. Martyn described relations with numerous groups around the globe, including local agents familiar with the regulatory environment of medications. Martyn offered to connect us with those local agents to better understand what steps are needed to actually get out product to market in our countries of interest. Most medications require rigorous testing, but the requirements vary country to country. We hope that this relationship will allow us to plan for future testing as well as gauge interest in our method coming to market.</span></p> | ||
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Revision as of 17:49, 5 September 2018
Human Practices
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/b/b1/T--UCSC--MapOfConnections.png)
Worldwide Connections - A UCSC Tradition
The iGEM competition challenges teams to improve quality of life. To help the world requires an understanding of what the world is asking for; as the 6th UCSC iGEM team, we uphold the reputation of UCSC investing heavily in worldwide outreach to not only spread the word about our project, but to understand the impact of our project on a personal level. Through personal connections we made, we evaluated potential issues related to our project including stigma, price, ethics, safety, security, and sustainability.
![Quotes](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/5/55/T--UCSC--Quotes_Hex.png)
Inspiration
Before choosing a project topic, our team emailed over 50 World Health Organization representatives around the globe to determine the most pressing issues. With the women’s rights movement on the rise again, the 2018 UCSC iGEM team wanted to prompt the discussion of women’s health at this year’s competition. We determined that many less-developed countries struggle with access to contraception because of stigma, location, and cost. Our goal was to focus on those countries to determine if they’d be interested in our new contraception method and willing to speak with us about their personal experiences.
Execution
Our outreach team contacted several big organizations, associations, and foundations for help on finding locals willing to speak to us. Not many of them got back to us, so we instead went an alternative route. We searched GoFundMe and found a group of women in Uganda called the Joy Women’s Group asking for money to help buy condoms for their community. They were funded through the Brighter Brains Institute (BBI) and we quickly contacted the BBI who put us into contact with three local women’s groups in Uganda. Through word of mouth, we reached 7 additional women’s groups. We created a questionnaire for locals to fill out to have a consistent question format. Their response to our efforts prompted us to reach out to other groups in 15 more countries to further spread our word and evaluate the need for cheaper, more accessible birth control.
Outcome
Through our questionnaire and close conversations with people from several countries, we gained an accurate understanding of how challenging it is to not only access birth control, but maintain access to it. We received over 35 responses to our questionnaire as well as personal testimonies from people regarding their opinions. Check out our map below to learn more!
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Our Connections
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/b/b1/T--UCSC--MapOfConnections.png)
![divider image](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/d/d9/T--UCSC--FlowerDivider.png)
Africa
Europe
North America
Oceania
Australia
Jenna, Pediatric Doctor
Awaiting completion of questionnaire.
We are currently working on updating information. We will update as it becomes available.
Brazil
Gisele, Mother and Community Leader
We are currently working on updating information. We will update as it becomes available.
China
Zhi, Former Chinese Citizen
We are currently working on updating information. We will update as it becomes available.
Colombia
Yeraldin, Colombian Citizen
Through a personal connection with a team member, we had the opportunity to talk with Yeraldin, a Colombian-born citizen. She believes that our birth control method is a meaningful pursuit. According to Yeraldin, “there are many unwanted pregnancies in Colombia, but it is a problem because there is no money to buy them.” She has had personal experiences with unplanned pregnancies in her family, but wished not to publish them here. Yeraldin believes that because there are high birth rates in Colombia, an easy, affordable birth control option could minimize the amount of unplanned pregnancies. She did not know of any specific rumors on birth control in Colombia, but she contributed this to birth control not being discussed much (neither negatively or positively). We believe that our contraception brochure could heavily benefit her uninformed community.
Read More >>Maria Camila Escobar Palomeque, Universidad de los Andes
A couple members of our iGEM team attended the 2018 BMES Coulter Conference. At the conference, our team members met a student named Maria from a Colombian university known as the Universidad de los Andes. We asked if she’d be interested in assisting us with our birth control project, and she said she would help us gain insight about birth control access in Colombia. Read More >>
Guatemala
Lizza, Citizen
We are currently working on updating information. We will update as it becomes available.
India
Foundation for Mother and Child Health
Through a connection with our PI, David Bernick, we met Piyasree Mukherjee, CEO of the Foundation for Mother and Child Health in India. According Ms. Mukherjee, her community possesses differing views on birth control. Some deem birth control a “money trap” because it requires device replacement or multiple rounds of a prescription. Others are skeptical and/or not knowledgeable about birth control because of the lack of information. Our team knows that birth control is expensive, but this was the first time that we heard that women felt gouged by necessary recurrent purchases of birth control methods. We will continue to update this information when their questionnaire responses arrive.
Italy
Aurora, Frequent Traveler & Student
Our team spoke with a Aurora, a friend of the team and a frequent traveler between Italy and the US. During her travels to Italy, Francesca found it difficult to use her preferred form of birth control and was instead pushed to use an IUD. IUDs, although common, are accompanied by potential painful side-effects. Aurora described her first IUD experience as “super painful”. IUDs last 3-6 years, and Aurora eventually needed to get her IUD replaced. Doctors informed her that her cervix was too small for the second IUD, so she received medicine to soften her cervix. Withstanding torturous cramps during the process, she relays, “if it hurt that [much] putting it in, I’m worried about getting it out”. We asked Aurora about religious implications of birth control in Italy, and she described that Italy is a heavily Catholic country. In most cases, religious leaders discourage use of birth control methods because they view it as “sin”. Regardless of Italy having easier access to contraceptives, the country’s religious overtones halt many from pursuing birth control for fear of harassment and ostracism.
Read More >>Mexico
Rosa, Citizen & Research Team Lead
From Guanajuato, Mexico, we were able to receive questionnaires from and interview a few women of a scientific research team. The team’s PI, Rosa , described her past experiences with birth control to us. She described her younger self as “uneducated” on the proper use of birth control. As a result of her ignorance and continued lack of birth control, she became pregnant at a young age and had a child she wasn’t able to proper care for. The team supports our new birth control method.
New Zealand
Ava, an alum of the University of Otago, reveals that she often had trouble purchasing birth control, but was able to access appointments with her local health provider for 15 minute appointments, or 30 minutes if she had the extra funds to spare. With little education being offered, many locals in the rural areas continued traditional forms of birth control, many of which were painfully unsafe or ineffective. In a few of the rural areas of New Zealand, the Maori and other rural communities were found, where many women were found to have used Poroporo leaves in a boiled broth as a form of contraceptive, with a consequence of possibile poisoning. In essence, if unmarried, political leaders often made it difficult for unmarried women to access birth control.
Peru
Guillermo Rodriguez, Former Peru Citizen
Guillermo Rodriguez is a close family friend of one of our iGEM members. He moved to the U.S in the late 70’s, but visits his family in Peru at least once a year. Guillermo has witnessed both Peru’s innovations and follies over the decades as he’s travelled between countries. In the 70’s and 80’s, birth control was very expensive, and only people of higher economic status had access to it. Now, as a predominantly Catholic society, many Peruvians don’t support the use of birth control in general. Read More >>
Russia
Misha, Former Russian Citizen
Misha, a native of the Soviet Union for half of her life, had discussed her experiences with birth control. At the age of 19 and after her first child, she was finally able to obtain an IUD. While access to this IUD took her many years to gain access to and condoms being too expensive, she relays that couples and people often resorted to not using any form of contraceptives, yet despite the government’s lack of assistance in supplying or providing cheap forms of birth control, abortions were provided by the state and were often women’s main form of birth control. In Russia, women are often aware of this and expect that they will undergo at least one abortion in their lifetime, and some receiving over four abortions. Yet, in her last few years in Russia, she observed that clinics where such abortions were being done began to be closed down over the years, which pushed many women to take old-traditional abortion methods which were very unsafe and dangerous to women’s lives.
Uganda
Basaliza Women Development Association (BAWODA)
BAWODA is group of women leaders spread all throughout Uganda. Their group encourages condom use if women cannot access safer birth control methods. Our outreach team spoke with Joy Muhindo, the chairperson of BAWODA. She informed us that the stigma on birth control in Uganda arose because women began trying unsafe birth control methods that had very dangerous side-effects. Read More >>
Buhanga Thuligahuma Women's Group
Through the recommendation of Hank Pellissier of BBI, our team contacted a Buhangan villager named Masereka Sebastian. Buhanga is a rural village of 2,000 people, and all are members of the BaKonzo tribe. The village is extremely isolated. According to Masereka Sebastian, you can't drive a car there--you have to walk 3 kilometers or take a dirt bike there. Being that Masereka Sebastian owns a dirt bike and can access printing shops outside of the village, our iGEM team contacted him to print our questionnaires for distribution to the local Buhanga Women. We had over 42 women interested in taking our survey, but we limited the number to ten. Read More >>
Joy Women's Group
The Joy Women’s Group is located in Western Uganda in the Nyamwamba Division of the Kasese Municipality. One of their group’s objectives is to promote nutrition, health and hygienic practices in the community. By far, the Joy Women’s Group is our most active group. Of their 25 group members, each showed heavy interest. We chose to interview seven of their members including their chairperson Mbambu Lavina. According to these seven participants, their community supports the use of contraception. Their community actually has access to contraception through a government healthcare facility known as Naigobya HC III. Read More >>
Kabwe Rural Women Development Association (KARWODA)
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/b/b9/T--UCSC--Karwoda.jpeg)
Also through the recommendation of Kabugho Beatrace, we met Masika Annet of the Kabwe Rural Women Development Association (KARWODA for short). Beatrace informed Annet that we were looking for more information about birth control methods and/or family planning programs already in practice, and she told us that “most birth control methods are sold in hospitals, drug shops, and clinics but are inaccessible”. She emphasized that even though options are available, most are far too expensive for the average woman to afford.
Read More >>Kinywankoko United Women Association (KUWA)
Our iGEM team made contact with Kabugho Beatrace through Hank Pellissier of the Brighter Brains Institute (BBI). KUWA is a women’s group based in the Kasese Municipality of Uganda. They assist marginalized women in the surrounding villages by providing them condoms, sanitary products, feminine hygiene education, and economic empowerment. They reside in the Bukonzo county which is “rated among the poorest counties where women live below poverty line and one survives on less than one US dollar a day” (Kabugho Beatrace, chairperson of KUWA). Read More >>
Kyogha Women
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/9/95/T--UCSC--Kyogha.jpg)
The Kyogha Women were particularly interesting to speak to. Their chairperson, Esther, informed us that her group has been on the search for advanced, safe birth control methods for a while now. Her group recently visited Makerere University in Uganda to see if they can “make an advanced birth control method that is also accessible with less side effects”. Esther was ecstatic to hear of our approach. She’s spent many years implementing family planning programs and trying to address the stigma on birth control. As with other groups, she mentioned that people fear purchasing birth control because they don’t “want to be laughed at”. We hope that our new birth control method will end Esther’s search for an affordable and safe contraceptive.
Nyakiyumbu Widows Association
When our team reached out to the Nyakiyumbu Widow’s Association, they were quick to reply and showed fascination in our contraception method. Muhindo Nyesi, chairperson of the NWA, stopped replying to our emails soon after. Our team wondered if her group lost interest, but we quickly learned the reason for her absence. Muhindo Nyesi’s nephew was hit by a car and, during recovery, was also brutally attacked by a group of boys. He was in the ICU for several weeks and underwent brain surgery, but finally recovered enough for Muhindo Nyesi to make a trip to the local library to email us back. She provided us responses to our questionnaire and apologized for her absence. We are so grateful for Muhindo Nyesi’s dedication to our project, especially in these difficult times for her family.
Read More >>Promote Africa Foundation
We discovered the Promote Africa Foundation through the Joy Women’s Group. The Promote Africa Foundation is a united women’s group that runs programs related to female reproductive health and women’s rights. According to Evelyn Lewsley, the leader of the PAF, they “encourage women to space their children because most children are abandoned by families who fail to provide for their children”. The Promote Africa Foundation encourages birth control methods throughout the Kasese District, and they’re currently encouraging birth control injections, but struggle to get women to participate since injections may cause bleeding. The Promote Africa Foundation is excited to work with us as they hope our birth control method will be safer for the women in Uganda.
Rita Women Development Association
The Rita Women Development Association resides in the Rwenzori region of Western Uganda. This group empowers women in their community and works to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. Through the recommendation of Kabugho Beatrace of KUWA, we made contact with the Rita women. Masika Vicky, the chairperson of Rita, informed us that there is a lot of stigma on contraception use (primarily condoms because they are the only contraception available). Currently, their group is working on an anti-HIV/AIDS campaign because there is a high rate of people affected by the virus in the Rwenzori region. The spread of HIV/AIDS stems from the stigma on contraception use; according to Masika Vicky, 98% of people fear to buy condoms in public and therefore have unprotected sex despite the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. Read More >>
United Kingdom
Dr. Pam Lowe, Aston University
Our team spoke to a woman from the United Kingdom known as Pam Lowe. Dr. Pam is the Senior Lecturer for the Department of Sociology and Policy at Aston University. Dr. Lowe is well known for her strong opinions on the unspoken ‘two-child policy’ in the United Kingdom. According to Dr. Lowe, the only stigma on birth control is not on those who use it, but rather it’s on those who DON’T. Fortunately for the UK, birth control is free within the National Health Service-- even for teenagers.
United States of America
Family Planning 2020
Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) is a well-known global partnership that supports women’s rights related to sexual and reproductive health. They are a subsection of the United Nations Foundation and are famous for partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to spread birth control information and awareness. By 2020, they want to expand access to family planning “information, services, and supplies to women in 69 of the world’s poorest countries”. Read More >>
![divider image](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/d/d9/T--UCSC--FlowerDivider.png)
The PoPPY team would like to thank everyone who made this project possible, especially those described above. For the past five years, undergraduates at UCSC have participated in iGEM. This year, the team is composed of students studying Bioengineering (Biomolecular), Bioinformatics, Bioengineering (Assistive Technology: Motor), Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Marine Biology, and Cognitive Science: Artificial Intelligence and Human Computer Interaction. Our diverse group of individuals is crucial for the creative process behind using synthetic biology to help others. Modern engineering demands collaboration between individuals and pushes them to think critically and work efficiently. Through synthetic biology, the 2018 UCSC iGEM team is creating effective solutions and developing models for future success.
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