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 The Population Institute receives many funding requests from organizations around the world for family planning and reproductive health care services. Responding to this need, in 1999 the Institute launched the Village Fund for Contraceptive Empowerment in the world’s poorest villages where the need for these services is not currently being met by any other organizations.
The Village Fund features a novel approach in funding population programs by working in partnership with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries. This program provides funding for contraceptive services and reproductive health care/education for a period of one year in grantee villages.
The Village Fund is a unique program in that 100% of each Village Fund grants goes directly to the provision of services to the people living in these villages. Neither the Population Institute nor its local partner charges any overhead or other management costs. The Institute has carefully selected partner organizations to maximize success and assure transparency, measurable progress, accountability, and donor trust.
INDIA
The Institute is working in Bihar, India in collaboration with the Rural Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS). People in this rural area are struggling to access family planning services, female sterilization operations and time-sensitive immunization services for infants and children at local hospitals and clinics. Villagers suffer from poor nutrition, gender discrimination, lack of reproductive health care and high population growth. The project is providing free community and reproductive health services to approximately 10,000 people (1,200 families) in its first year. The project also will organize seminars, empower women around their health needs and emphasize the need for girls’ primary education.
 The area of work is in the Tajpur village in the Samastipur district. The 1,200 target families receive free home distribution of family planning contraceptive devices. There will also be free reproductive health care for pregnant women and free immunization services to infants, children and mothers. RIMS will also provide education on reproductive health. The information, progress and the general knowledge gained about family welfare in the region will be shared with The Population Institute, the United Nations and the Government of India.
Bihar is the poorest state in India. Prior to beginning the Village Fund, RIMS completed a survey period in the target areas, which created a baseline of data to measure progress. The survey showed that less than 2.5 percent of the couples have used any type of family planning and contraceptive methods. Of the total population surveyed, only one person had ever used a condom.
Only a couple of months into the Village Fund project 224 women have started taking Oral Contraceptives and 181 people have been given condoms. In addition, over 400 women and children had received health services including vitamins and Iron & Folic Acid Tablets, postnatal and antenatal care. All participants in the group had been personally contacted by Village Fund workers and had received education and information about family planning and reproductive health care.
The project has brought a “revolution in the area,” according to Mr. Chandra Bibhuti of RIMS. Many people not currently a part of the project are clamoring to be included, he said. Local media outlets have provided substantial coverage and local government officials have been visiting RIMS Headquarters regularly to see the progress of the project.
GHANA
The Village Fund project in Ghana funds the Youth Empowerment through Contraceptives in the East Akim District, working with the Amansan Aid Ghana group. In this area of Ghana, the problem of contraceptive distribution has been identified as one of the reasons for low contraceptive use in the country. This is because until recently contraceptives were only distributed in urban areas, but 60% of the population is living in rural areas. Amansan Aid Ghana is working to supply the unmet contraceptive needs of the sexually active population in the communities in the district.
The target population for the program is sexually active youth (and youth associations) age 15-24. The Strategy focuses on group discussion, dialogue, capacity building, workshops and open forums. Volunteers in the program were given a three-day intensive capacity building workshop with personnel from the Ministry of Health. The target communities in Ghana are: Apedwa, Amanfro, Odumase, Kibi, Asiakwa, Old/New Tafo, Bunso and Kukurantumi.
The goal of the program is that the entire community embraces the outreach to sexually active youth and increase the use of modern contraception. The Fund will supply over 45,000 methods of contraceptives among the target population.
MEXICO
In Mexico, the Institute has been working in partnership with MEXFAM, an independent non-profit organization providing contraceptive services and sex education in 27 different states of Mexico. Three Mexican villages - Arroyo Seco, Jalpan de Serra, and Pinal de Amoles - were selected to receive funding for family planning initiatives in 2000. These villages were selected because they register high growth rates and lack access to education and basic health care services. At the completion of the this project in August 2001, 5,000 couples had received family planning services; 1,500 couples received a year’s worth of contraceptive protection; and a total of 37 voluntary community health promoters were recruited, trained, and equipped to provide reproductive and primary health care services to their community members.
In 2001, the Institute successfully secured funds from individual donors and started three additional projects in Mexico. The first Village Fund project aimed to provide services in three indigenous communities in the Hidalgo district. A second project in Oaxaca supported MEXFAM clinics to provide reproductive health care information and education, supply contraceptives, provide health care consultations, and train volunteers and midwives to provide health care. The third project installed a community health clinic to help the impoverished people in the Guerrero district of Mexico.
In 2002, the Institute initiated a new project in the shanty towns surrounding Mexico City. The availability of reproductive health care is scarce and the growth rate in these slum areas is as high as 3.5% to 4%. The goal was to fulfill the unmet demands for reproductive health care and contraceptive services in these communities. The project staff disseminated educational literature and updated information about family planning services. The project was completed in September 2003.
The Population Institute is currently coordinating again with MEXFAM to establish a Gente Joven (Youth Center) project in Mexico. The purpose of this project is to establish a Gente Joven in the most disadvantaged section of Mexico. This Center will deal with remedial education, job readiness training and health care, including prevention of STD/HIV/AIDS and unintended adolescent pregnancy.
BANGLADESH
The Institute launched its Village Fund project in the Bangladeshi village of Jattrapur. Almost 2,000 people live in this village but there are no health care facilities, no electricity and no running water. Only 5.7% of the villagers used contraceptives. In this village the Population Institute worked with a local Bangladeshi NGO, Goriber Asroy (Shelter for the Poor), to provide reproductive health care and family planning education.
This project conducted 40 courtyard meetings with villagers discussing the importance of family planning. They conducted 48 tea-stall discussion sessions and distributed educational booklets about reproductive health, arranged four rallies and held 60 mobile film shows. Twenty-four seminars were held in high schools about HIV/AIDS prevention, the disadvantages of early marriage, overpopulation and general health care.
Project staff distributed 48,000 condoms, 5,000 packs of birth control pills, and 10 Norplant and other contraceptive methods in collaboration with the town hospital. The staff also organized satellite clinics twice a month to counsel villagers about family planning, to diagnose STDs, and to provide pregnancy care and medical check ups. Five midwives received training as birth attendants and 230 participants attended sessions on STD/HIV/AIDS prevention and contraceptive use.
NEPAL
The Nepal Village Fund project was launched in the village of Koli in Accham. The people living in this village suffer from food shortage and high unemployment. The project, launched in collaboration with a Nepalese NGO, Center for Agro-Ecology Development, worked to treat women suffering from STDs and prolapsed uteruses, reduce fertility rates, make health care more accessible, educate villagers about reproductive issues, and increase the marriage age of girls to at least 20.
The project staff in Nepal were able to disseminate information about family planning and population issues to 2,200 villagers. Three hundred and eighteen new users of family planning were enlisted and 220 women received medical treatment and counseling for prolapsed uterus sufferers. Forty-one educational sessions were held for the villagers.
Additional Information
The Village Fund program utilizes the donors’ investments to help leverage additional resources to sustain the initiative in these villages. Currently, the Institute is raising funds from private foundations and individual donors to support family planning initiatives in the poorest villages of 20 developing countries where the need for these services is not currently being met by any other organizations. There is a special emphasis on contraception, including all medically approved methods of family planning. To identify villages most in need of funding, the Population Institute has worked with potential partner NGOs and utilized a host of reference materials to collect pertinent data on existing health services and demographic indices in each area.
For Village Fund Submission Guidelines contact William Johnson
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