Health Promotion Through Video: Maternal and Child Health and Child Spacing
We collaborate with the Ministry of Health and communities in our program districts to develop and implement a wide range of materials and strategies that promote maternal and newborn health at the village level. At the level of community-based health promotion, we seek to involve all relevant groups working in program districts to participate in the design and implementation of activities that are tailored to the needs of each district or community. Particular attention is given to training Ministry of Health staff and the cadre of Ministry-sponsored community health workers to use the materials and approaches that are developed.
An important initial activity was the production of a film to educate women and their families about the benefits of consulting midwives for prenatal care, delivery services and postnatal checkups. Directed by internationally-known filmmaker Max Stahl, Timorese students did the filming as they spent time in rural areas with women near their delivery times. The film portrays powerful scenes of pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period, including actual scenes of newborn mortality and serious neonatal complications that were resolved because of the attendance of a midwife. The film is being shown in remote rural areas to provide women and their families with visual evidence of the dangers of delivery without a midwife or doctor.
The child spacing film, Espaso Oan, engages rural Timorese audiences as it
educates about the benefits of healthy timing and spacing of children and about
specific methods of modern contraceptives
A second film project was the production of a two-part film promoting the benefits of family planning for optimal spacing of children, and technical information about specific family planning methods. This film, with an introduction by the Vice Minister of the country, was officially adopted by the Ministry of Health to be a part of its national family planning program. Both films are being widely shown in HAI program districts as well in other districts in the country. We sponsor community film screenings in rural communities that are followed by a guided discussion with community members. The purpose of the guided discussion is to clarify information presented in the films that is often quite new to Timorese audiences. A qualitative evaluation in 2009 found that both men and women improved their knowledge of contraceptive methods after watching the film, especially when that was coupled with a discussion session. (Read our case study for more information about these results.)
We have also undertaken the production of short, educational film modules that will be used by Ministry of Health district health staff and community leaders to promote healthy behaviors related to maternal and newborn health in five key areas: birth planning, the importance of seeking assistance from a skill birth attendant for deliveries, immediate newborn care, the importance of feeding newborns colostrums, and post-partum care. Training for health staff and community leaders in how to effectively use the film modules for community health promotion was conducted in late 2009.
Where tradition and difficult access to services seriously limit understanding of the need for antenatal, delivery, postpartum care and the benefit of child spacing, it is important to provide believable evidence of their importance to women and their families. Modern film technologies can make that feasible even in very resource-poor settings.
Funding for the films came from USAID and AusAid.