For my university course following my summer fellowship, I was assigned to write a mock proposal for a fellowship or grant that incorporated my experiences and reflections from my summer abroad.
I chose to write a mock proposal for a grant from the Clinton Global Initiative University for a follow-up project based off of my summer work. Please see a draft of it below.
Chicas Poderosas:
Empowering At-Risk Girls in Catarina, Masaya through Leadership Development
Commitment to Action:
Chicas Poderosas is a girls’ leadership development initiative that aims to create knowledgeable and motivated peer advocates who are equipped and invested to improve their own health, the health of their friends and family, and the wellbeing of their communities at large. The project is targeted towards underserved female youth in Masaya, Nicaragua, particularly female students aged 13-18 years living within the Catarina municipal boundaries attending the Maria Concepción secondary school. The program will be run through the dedicated mentorship of select female students from American universities and the guidance of community leaders dedicated to girls’ health.
Specific Global Challenge Being Addressed:
Nicaragua has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Latin America with 28% of women giving birth before the age of 18 years. Adolescent pregnancies have serious health risks to both infants and mothers. Babies born to teen mothers are more likely to be born prematurely and have low birthrates, which are associated with many infant and childhood disorders and a higher rate of infant mortality. Maternal mortality amongst adolescents is also a significant problem, with adolescents accounting for one third of all maternal deaths in Nicaragua. Due to differences in physical development, the risk of maternal death is up to four times higher among adolescents younger than 16 years than among women in their twenties.
Adolescent pregnancies also adversely affect communities and contribute to their sustained poverty. Pregnant teenagers often end up dropping out of secondary school and not continuing their education, placing a significant strain on the nation’s economy. With 48% of the population living below the national poverty line, Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti. If rates of adolescent pregnancy drop, this could raise the number of educated women contributing to the nation’s economy as well as simultaneously reduce rapid population growth rates that are contributing to the nation’s problem of prolonged poverty.
These high rates of teenage pregnancy illustrate the significant need for sexual health education in Nicaraguan secondary schools. Amongst adolescent aged 15-19 years in Nicaragua, 39% have had sex, and of these, 13% had started before the age of 15 years. Many of these sexually active adolescents are not using contraceptive methods. Of Nicaraguan adolescents with sexual partners, only 30.7% of them have ever used a contraceptive method, and 46% of them have already had one child. Though there is a widespread consensus amongst healthcare workers here that more birth control education and family planning are desperately needed, there is a lack of concerted and continued effort. Currently there is one doctor at the Centro de Salud Monimbo who was selected to go out to a local school once a month to present on a health topic; however, for the past year he has been in charge of this role, he has not once taught a class on sexual education. There are also school education outreach programs led by other local women’s health organizations such Ixchen and Centro de Mujeres, but their efforts are irregular and inconsistent. Persisting high adolescent pregnancy rates in the community underscores the need for a more unique and continued approach.
Specific Activities Designed to Tackle Issue:
The Chicas Poderosas initiative tackles the problem from a new perspective, by educating a group of young female peer health mentors who are trained and educated by representatives from the health center and other local organizations on birth control methods are other health topics relevant to their lives and subsequently supporting them to design and pursue their own grassroots education campaign efforts. These girls can start the conversations amongst their peers that are necessary to bring attention to local issues, and will likely be more listened to than an outsider or an older person removed from their lives.
The Chicas Poderosas program involves providing an annual two-week long enrichment day camp for 50 girls aged 13-18 living in the Catarina area. These two weeks will occur during the November-December school vacation and will be filled with workshops on topics such as contraceptive use, domestic violence prevention, and future planning and subsequent open discussions about how they view a world with gender equality. For many Nicaraguan girls living in this rural region, the November to December school vacation period does not permit for many personal development activities, and many become burdened with several domestic responsibilities during this time; this camp attempts to reverse this trend. The girls, elected on the basis of their leadership skills by their teachers, will exchange ideas about how to improve gender equality and the health of their female peers and mothers within their community, and will then design an outreach project to implement during the last week of the program. This program will be run by overseen by a board of 4 representatives, each representing the Centro de Salud Monimbo, Ixchen, Centro de Mujeres Masaya, and Pro Mujer respectively and will be run on the ground by 10 Spanish-speaking American female university students preferably who have experience working in Nicaragua in the past, who will be accepted through an application process implemented during the previous June and then trained through a 6-month online course with frequent online conference calls.
How This is Different Than What’s Been Previously Done:
From my previous summer’s worth of experiences collaborating with local organizations in Masaya to work on the area of adolescent sexual health, I have realized there is an abundance of community members and leaders who recognize that teenage pregnancy is a problem and that education and awareness-building amongst youth is a best means to solve this; however, I have also noticed that a general lack of collaboration amongst these organization has presented to be a significant hindrance towards any collective movement towards progress. Other barriers towards progress include an overburdened health worker staff and lack of financial incentives within the system to encourage extra outreach programs. Therefore, my proposed initiative involves incorporating community leader involvement and collaboration but also a sustainable annual structure involving foreign college students to help provide support. This will also function as a means of improving leadership and broadening world views of female college students and will allow for our expanded eligibility for U.S.-based funding opportunities.
Overall, this proposed program is focused heavily on the girls themselves and how they can become influential advocates within their networks of peers. During my work last summer in Monimbo, Masaya, I was touched and inspired by the self-less commitment these teenage girls have towards improving their communities and helping those within their social networks. It was also very motivating to see the creativity and diversity of ideas amongst the girls about ways that they could help their communities. I could see a definite change in confidence once the girls successfully facilitated their first outreach project, and I think that this ripple effect involving girls leading other girls to make change can truly make tangible effects on communities.
Brief Autobiography
My name is Michelle Tran, and I am a 20-year-old Los Angeles native and third-year student at Rice University in Houston, TX who is passionate about women’s health worldwide. I am pursuing a major in biochemistry and a minor in poverty, justice and human capabilities and will be matriculating in to Mount Sinai’s Icahn Medical School in fall of 2018 to pursue my M.D. I have spent significant time in Nicaragua twice; once in my freshman year when I volunteered with Rice’s Global Medical Brigades Chapter to help run a mobile clinic in a rural mountainous area of Jinotega and a second time when I returned last summer to work in Masaya, Nicaragua with the Foundations for Sustainable Development to implement a 2-month girls’ leadership program and teenage pregnancy support group with the Centro de Salud Monimbo.
References:
Gordillo-Tobar, A., Beneitez, G., Ortega J., Waters W., Bravo, E. (n.d.) Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Nicaragua: An Analysis Using a Sexual and reproductive Health Framework and Human Rights. World Bank Group – Health, Nutrition and Population.Retrieved from http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2014/12/12/000333037_20141212013101/Rendered/PDF/930930BRI0Box300Rights0in0NICARAGUA.pdf
Lempiainen, M. (2013, March 15). Let’s talk about sex in Nicaragua. Pass Blue. Retrieved from http://passblue.com/2013/03/15/lets-talk-about-sex-in-nicaragua/
Lion, K., Prata, N., Stewart, C. (2009, June). Adolescent Childbearing in Nicaragua: A Quantitative Assessment of Associated Factors. International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. Retrieved from https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3509109.html