Blog: MID-BCC Field Observations

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May 9, 2012-

USAID’s global project, PREVENT has worked with the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) on public affairs. April 17 – 20, 2012 we conducted a workshop for nine field epidemiologists and health communication officials from Angola and Mozambique. Workshop was held in Maputo.

First day all the workshop group from PREVENT is together in the same place – Fernando Garcia, David Zucker, Efua Orleans-Lindsay and Dee Bennett. We meet early to edit, re-order, rewrite, and translate presentation. This continued throughout the day and finalizedthe presentation’s materials, slides, and videos. More...

May 9, 2012-

Anton Schneider, Regional BCC Advisor for PREVENT, travelled to Sabah, Malaysia April 15-16 to visit the Sabah Wildlife Department in order to assist them in characterizing the human-wildlife interface and identify potentially risky behaviors that could allow transmission of zoonotic diseases from wildlife to people.

My first trip to Sabah since vacationing there 15 years before, I found Sabah to be just as beautiful as I remembered it. But unlike my vacation visit in 1997, this time I planned to meet with the Sabah Wildlife Department in the hopes we might assist them in characterizing the human-wildlife interface and identify potentially risky behaviors that could allow transmission of zoonotic diseases from wildlife to people.  More...

May 9, 2012-

Cecile Lantican, MID-BCC Country Coordinator Lao PDR, facilitated an advocacy training workshop May 2 and 3 for 22 government staff members from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MOAF) in Vientiane, Lao PDR.

Advocacy is a nuanced communication strategy and an important first step in creating behavior change among communities and organizations. Advocacy is well-developed and expertly executed in many countries and cultures, especially in the West. There are some cultures where it is not considered appropriate to advocate for a cause or an issue…and some governments look less kindly on non-governmental advocacy activities. More...

April 24, 2012 -

Le Thanh Hai, PREVENT's program coordinator in Vietnam, shares the snapshot of the field rice rat trade captured during rapid market mapping of district and commune markets in 11 provinces of the Mekong Delta Region.

The Mekong Delta Region is considered a hometown of rice field rats (Chuot Dong in Vietnamese). In the past, Chuot Dong meat was very cheap so there were few farmers who caught rats. But to-date, rat meat has become a special dish on the menu of many restaurants in the big cities of the Mekong.  More...

April 23, 2012 -

Cecile Lantican, MID-BCC Country Coordinator Lao PDR, was among the 200 people from around the world who attended the Sixth International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA6) in Hanoi, Vietnam from April 16-20, 2012.

Like the highly pathogenic avian influenza and H1N1, climate change faces the challenge of how science and technology could be made available to and utilized by vulnerable and at risk communities so that they can manage and cope with the impact of adverse events.  

I was nominated by my office to attend the Sixth International Conference on Community-based Adaptation in Hanoi, Vietnam. My part in this forum was to share the community-level communication approaches that were tested and found useful to help communities address pandemic threats and emergencies. More...

April 17, 2012 -

Tongngy Kaing, MID-BCC consultant, shares his visits to community forums in four H5N1 high-risk provinces in Cambodia.

I traveled to Kampot, Svay Rieng, Kandal and Battambang the last week of March and first of April - just before New Years - to help organize and facilitate community forums on prevention related to bird flu (H5N1 virus).

Because these communities have most recently had outbreaks of the virus or remained as gateways of poultry transportation from other countries, there was a lot of public interest. About 500 people joined the forum in each of the four border provinces, and local TV stations such as CTN, Bayon and TVK also covered the forums. More...

Cecile Lantican, MID-BCC Country Coordinator LAO PDR revisits the wet markets and green markets prior to Pi Mai (Lao New Year) in Vientaine, Lao PDR where risk reduction campaigns for the H5N1 virus were conducted.

I find this project activity very interesting. All my life, the market has been a significant part of my role as a mother --- and now as a country manager of an infectious diseases project.

I always go to the market to buy fresh fish, meat, vegetables, fruits and other commodities to suit my requirements in preparing food for my family, but I never realized that the market means more than a place where exchange of commodities and services takes place. More...

March 20, 2012 -

Every year, Cambodian monks partake in the Dhammayietra, a peace walk. This year, MID-BCC supported the monks by providing training and materials for the monks to spread avian influenza prevention messages to the schools and communities they visited. MID-BCC consultant Tongngy Kaing accompanied the monks for their training and the first part of their walk, and shared his experience with us.

Pre-departure training took place from March 10 to 11, but I could join only on the 11th. It started 7:30 and finished at about 11:30. The contents of the training are Buddhism, prayer, disciplines of the walk, how to teach students, general guidelines. But what is interesting is that there was a 30-minute training on how to teach hand washing to students and children at about 10:00. There was a revision of how to wash hands properly for all the monks. Since I got some A4 posters from FHI 360 here, I gave one to each of the 40 monks. More...

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