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Strengthening Health Outcomes for Women and Girls
Every day, more than 800 women and girls die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Tackling inequality would improve the overall health of women and girls around the world and result in fewer deaths. Our work to make health and rights education and services more accessible helps women and girls make informed decisions about their own health and the health of their children.
Explore this six-part multimedia series by scrolling through the content below to learn more about how this health project ensures that services can meet the unique needs of girls and boys and help entire communities champion women's and adolescent girls’ health while moving the needle on equality.
The journey
for women & girls
Plan International and its partners are improving health for vulnerable women, adolescent girls and children in five countries. By promoting equal rights for all, we're helping address the root cause of maternal and child deaths.
This innovative health partnership underscores our mission to tackle the root causes of gender inequality.
Tanjina Mirza
Chief Programs Officer
Plan International Canada
Community leaders and government partners were directly involved in every aspect of Show.
Altaf Hossain
LAMB, SHOW PROJECT PARTNER
Bangladesh
SHOW threw open the windows and brought in a big breath of fresh air. The approach and change were revolutionary.
Aminata Traore Seck
Ministry of Education
Senegal
A bold approach to health
Plan International and its partners have led an initiative to improve the health of women, adolescent girls and children through a bold approach addressing the gender norms that are often at the heart of poor health for women and girls. In hundreds of communities in five countries, this approach empowers women and girls and encourages men to support and respect the health and rights of their partners.
“I’ve been working in health for 25 years and I’ve never seen this kind of work,” says Tanjina Mirza, chief programs officer at Plan Canada.
The Strengthening Health Outcomes for Women and Children (SHOW) project has resulted in healthier pregnancies and safer births, while changing the way women, men and adolescents think about and act on gender roles.
“I now see women who are going to deliver their babies at a health facility. This is a big change,” says Hafsatu Sety Sumani, who helped to lead the work in Ghana.
“Men are supporting their wives more when they are pregnant and accompanying them to the health facility.”
We’re even starting to see more girls in senior school,” says Ms. Sumani, who works with NORSAAC, a SHOW partner.
This is show
SHOW is a five-and-a-half-year project (2016–2021*); 2020–2021 are devoted primarily to COVID-19 response and the continuity of essential health services for mothers, newborns and children as well as specific health services for girls and women. This multi-country project, designed to address the unique needs of girls, boys, women and men, was funded with the support of Global Affairs Canada.
The aim is to contribute to reduce deaths of vulnerable women and children, including adolescent girls, in remote, underserved areas of Bangladesh, Ghana, Haiti, Nigeria and Senegal.
“A traditional approach would have provided training and supplies in health centres, together with some education for the community,” says Chris Armstrong, the Director of Health at Plan International Canada.
with SHOW we worked directly with communities to improve health by tackling gender barriers that have traditionally harmed women, men, girls and boys.
Chris Armstrong
Director of Health
Plan international canada
Since SHOW began, we've achieved results for at least 2.37 million people, including more than 1.5 million women and girls, and exceeded targets in most countries.
THE FOLLOWING CHART REPRESENTS AN AVERAGE OF THE FIVE COUNTRIES, SHOWING INCREASES IN KEY INDICATORS OF MATERNAL HEALTH ACROSS THE CONTINUUM OF CARE
These changes in health outcomes after a relatively short period demonstrate the promise of our approach.
saadya hamdani
director, Gender Equality
plan international canada
“We integrated equality into SHOW activities from start to finish,” says Saadya Hamdani, director of gender equality at Plan Canada. “As a result, we see changes in women’s community leadership and the ways men both support women at home and to seek the health services they need. This is very exciting.”
These are difficult changes to make. “Post-natal care is one of the hardest areas to improve and also one of the most important, as this is when we lose new mothers to severe bleeding and infections,” says Dr. Mirza. “The overall improvement of 15 percentage points in post-natal care is brilliant. This suggests a real decline in maternal mortality.”
“Priorities for the Government of Canada's international assistance include helping to reduce maternal and child mortality and ensuring sexual and reproductive health services for all who need them,” says Caroline Leclerc, Assistant Deputy Minister, Partnerships for Development Innovation at Global Affairs Canada. “The SHOW project has delivered on these priorities for the most vulnerable women, adolescent girls and children, in remote, underserved regions.”
Our partnership with Plan continues, especially now as COVID-19 impacts health systems around the world.
Caroline Leclerc
assistant Deputy Minister, global affairs canada
SHOW starts with community
Communities are at the heart of Plan International’s work. They are where lasting change happens. Women and girls should take charge of their health and lives. Men should actively support them and promote equal rights for all. And health centres in communities should be well-equipped, and served by professional staff who are skilled to serve the unique needs of women, men, adolescent girls and boys.
To achieve this, we worked with communities to strengthen women's and girls’ agency and networks; engaged husbands, partners and traditional and religious leaders; trained hundreds of health workers and community volunteers; and supported health centres so they were easier to access and staffed with skilled professionals who could provide health services that are responsive to individuals' unique needs, especially for adolescent girls and pregnant women.
“There were three important areas to strengthen in SHOW communities,” says Chris Armstrong.
“First, the women and girls of the community should be empowered to demand health services, with full support from their partners, husbands and fathers.
Second, the supply of trained health workers, community volunteers, and equipped health centres have to meet that demand.
And third, we wanted partners, and the health centres to be accountable to the community and individuals – to share data that helped everyone measure progress or make changes.”
All programming was designed to ensure equality between women and men, girls and boys, and reshape unequal power relations.
The fourth area of the SHOW strategy focuses on Canada. At Plan International, we want to showcase how the Government of Canada is investing in bold programming to improve maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and every aspect of girls' and women's health. You can learn more about the Public Engagement work here.
Show in action
The stories in this series describe how SHOW was organized to build the agency of women and girls, engage men in promoting equality and build a health service system that works for everyone.
HERE ARE JUST TWO EXAMPLES OF SHOW INNOVATION:
In Bangladesh, where about 5,100 mothers die every year while giving birth, often due to lack of transport to a health facility, SHOW helped buy rickshaws and pay the salaries of rickshaw ambulance drivers to carry women safely and respectfully to a health centre to give birth. Through training, drivers even became advocates for change and equality for girls and women.
The project has motivated our community to save mothers from maternal deaths during pregnancy and delivery.
Mr. Dulal
Rickshaw Ambulance driver
Bangladesh
Plan International and its partners established dedicated programs for adolescent girls and boys, with the aim of improving their knowledge so they would begin to demand and access health services that meet their specific needs. In Senegal for example, youth groups formed clubs to talk about “everything,” including contraception, child marriage and early pregnancy.
“In order to help the adolescent boys, we try to be closer to them to share the information we have got from the club,” says Oumou, a teenage equality advocate.
show Countries
We worked in partnership with governments and local partners in each of the five countries to identify the communities where SHOW could make the most difference. The focus in Bangladesh, Ghana, Haiti, Nigeria and Senegal was on communities where maternal and newborn deaths were especially high.
“The engagement of the partners early on was so important,” says Tahina Rabezanahary, Director of Program Management and Compliance at Plan International Canada.
The government partners, the civil society partners, the communities, the local officials and traditional leaders. You can really see the change when all of these actors are working together.
Tahina Rabezanahary
Plan international canada
At the outset of planning SHOW, we worked with communities and governments to understand specific needs. As the program got underway, we surveyed community members about their access to health services, about women and adolescent girls’ health status, and the gender related barriers that impede women’s and girls’ health.
“The poorer people are, the less likely they are to receive healthcare. The face of poverty is female.” says Dr. Tanjina Mirza.
National and local governments, community organizations, health workers and community members have worked together since 2016 on SHOW to help improve every aspect of maternal, newborn and child health and knowledge of girls' and women's specific health-care needs.
The results of the SHOW project demonstrate that our approach of considering every aspect of girls' and women's health in our programming is a success.
Read more of this series to delve into the ways Plan International implemented the SHOW project, working with governments, local partners and communities to improve women and children's health.
Read the NEXT story in this series about how the SHOW project empowered women.
Click the links below to read more about Plan International and the show project.
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