We all want a better life for our families and for ourselves. I’d go so far as to say the impulse to improve our lot in life is pretty much universal. When people can no longer bear the conditions in which they live, when they can no longer count on being able to take care of the ones they love, they are willing to do whatever it takes to change those circumstances. Human traffickers look for desperate people like these. Promising them work and a better life, they lure them into some of the most horrific working conditions imaginable. According to the UN, the majority of detected trafficking victims globally are women and girls, most of whom are trafficked for sexual exploitation.
Our newsletter this month explores the terrifying reality of human trafficking in developing countries and some of the ways that organizations and individuals are fighting back. Our Goalmaker this month, Veronica Fynn Bruey, an affiliated faculty member at Seattle University School of Law, escaped the civil war in Liberia to become an award-winning scholar in law, public health, science and psychology, as well as an advocate for displaced and trafficked persons globally. Our featured member organization, Every Woman Treaty, is campaigning to establish a global treaty to end violence against women and girls.
Also, I’m excited to announce that registration for our annual conference in Seattle on December 5th is now open. The conference sold out last year, so if you know you plan to be there, take advantage of Early Bird pricing and purchase your tickets today.
A former fishing boat slave profiled in the new film, Ghost Fleet. Photo courtesy Vulcan Productions.
We often think of slavery as a scourge of the past, something that developed countries, at least, abolished centuries ago. But devastatingly, slavery continues to thrive around the world, in both rich and poor countries – so much so that it is addressed in three of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. Today, we call it human trafficking.
Although the term often evokes the idea of victims being smuggled across borders, human trafficking is much more than that. It is the exploitation of people – usually girls and women – through force, fraud or coercion for labor, sex, marriage, organ removal, illegal adoption, begging or other purposes.
In January, the UN’s Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that the number of trafficking victims being reported by countries is increasing. However, it’s difficult for the agency to say if that trend reflects an actual increase in victims or if countries are just doing a better job at detecting and reporting them. Either way, we are far from a complete and accurate picture of the global scale of trafficking, but what we do know is bleak.
The latest UN estimate says that at any given time in 2016, there were 40.3 million victims of human trafficking around the world. In other words, more people than are in the entire state of California are being subjected to modern slavery, including nearly 25 million people in forced labor and 15.4 million in forced marriages.
The UNODC report says that the vast majority of detected trafficking victims – 72 percent – are women and girls, most of whom are being trafficked for sexual exploitation. However, 35 percent of victims who are trafficked for forced labor are also female. That’s why SDG 5, which aims to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls,” includes as Target 2 to “eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.”
Although trafficking is a global problem, the predominant forms of exploitation and profiles of victims vary by region. In East Asia and the Pacific, both women and girls are primary targets for sexual exploitation. In North America, South America, Western and Southern Europe as well as Central and Southeastern Europe, adult women face the highest risk of sexual exploitation, while in Central America, it’s girls.
Women are also primarily targeted for sexual exploitation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but there, men are prime targets for forced labor, as well. In the Middle East, East Africa and Southern Africa, men and women are both targeted for forced labor. But in West Africa, children are the main victims of trafficking for forced labor.
Men, women, girls and boys are all at high risk of being trafficked in South Asia. For men, it’s mostly for forced labor, while for women and children it’s for both labor and sexual exploitation. Similarly, in North Africa, adults and children of both genders are targeted by traffickers, but there, it’s primarily for begging, organ removal and other forms of exploitation.
According to the UNODC, most trafficking victims are detected in their home country. However, the highest number of victims detected outside their home region are from East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. On the receiving end, wealthy countries – especially in Western and Southern Europe and the Middle East – have the largest shares of trafficking victims from other regions.
So, what’s driving this global epidemic? In many cases, traffickers capitalize on potential victims’ desire to migrate for better conditions. Increasingly, that desire is driven by conflicts, which have destabilized governments, threatened the physical safety of civilians, eliminated economic opportunities and pushed many families into poverty and hunger. Weak rule of law and depleted resources create ideal environments in which traffickers can prey on desperate people.
But trafficking is also a lucrative operation. In 2014, the International Labour Organization (ILO) reported that forced labor generates $150 billion in illegal profits every year. Two-thirds of that is from commercial sexual exploitation, while the rest is from other forms of economic exploitation. Of those, construction, manufacturing, mining and utilities industries profited the most ($34 billion), followed by agriculture, forestry and fishing ($9 billion) and domestic labor ($8 billion).
Vulcan Productions – a film company founded by Microsoft’s co-founder Paul G. Allen and his sister, Jody Allen – recently brought to audiences the appalling realities of the modern slave industry. Their documentary, “Ghost Fleet,” follows Thai activist, Patima Tungpuchayakul, and her husband, Sompong Srakaew, as they risk their lives to rescue enslaved fishermen in Indonesia. Many were kidnapped from Thailand and Myanmar to “feed the world’s insatiable appetite for seafood,” including fish found in U.S. grocery stores.
Although the fishing and agriculture sectors are certainly responsible for a large share of slavery, the ILO noted in a 2017 report that, apart from sexual exploitation, domestic labor actually accounts for the largest percent (24 percent) of identified forced labor cases in the private economy. That’s because most countries do not protect domestic workers under their labor laws. Many coercive practices also occur in construction, which accounts for 18 percent of identified forced labor exploitation cases.
Perhaps the sector that has received the most attention for forced labor practices is manufacturing, where 15 percent of identified cases occur. In particular, small garment and footwear factories in South Asia have come under public scrutiny, as have electronics brands. But forced labor is also prevalent in many other forms of manufacturing that haven’t received as much attention, such as medical garment factories in Asia that rely on migrant workers or technology companies that use minerals in their products mined from conflict zones.
But most companies don’t even know if slave labor is a part of their products’ supply chains. That’s why organizations like Made in a Free World have decided to catalyze large-scale change with tools to promote transparency. Their software platform, FRDM (pronounced freedom), is a global database that helps companies map their supply chains to make sure they’re in compliance with national and international regulations on human trafficking and child labor.
Certainly, companies and consumers have a responsibility to exercise due diligence, but governments and the international community also play a critical role in tackling this gross human rights problem. That’s why Target 7 of SDG 8, which promotes “decent work for all,” calls on countries to “take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labor in all its forms.”
One step toward doing that is captured by SDG 16, which aims to “promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.” Well-functioning institutions are absolutely necessary for detecting human trafficking victims, reporting cases and convicting perpetrators. Target 2 of the goal calls specifically for an “end [to] abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.”
According to UNODC, there has been a significant improvement in countries’ capacities to detect and report trafficking cases. Ten years ago, only 26 countries had an institution that systematically collected and shared data on trafficking. By 2018, 65 countries had such an institution. Still, major gaps in data collection and reporting persist.
In many countries, exploitation goes unreported because victims don’t know how to take legal action against their abusers. The World Justice Project launched the SASANE Paralegal Training Program in Nepal, in order to address that issue. The program, led by survivors, trained trafficking survivors to become paralegals, not only to help them gain financial independence, but also to equip them to help other survivors.
Overall, UNODC says that conviction rates have increased as the number of detected and reported victims have increased. This means that criminal justice systems are working. But many countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, still have very low numbers of convictions, as well as fewer detected victims. These figures suggest an environment of impunity that, if left unaddressed, could incentivize more trafficking.
That’s why it’s so important for the entire global community to work toward sustainable development on all fronts. Abolishing modern slavery not only requires tackling the issues that make people vulnerable to exploitation, but also building a world in which trafficking cannot continue.
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The following Global Washington members are working to end human trafficking.
Every Woman Treaty
Every Woman Treaty is a coalition of more than 1,700 women’s rights activists, including 840 organizations, in 128 nations working to advance a global binding norm on the elimination of violence against women and girls. The organization’s working group studied recommendations from the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and scholarly research on how to solve the problem of violence against women and girls, including trafficking and modern slavery, and found that a global treaty is the most powerful step the international community can take to address an issue of this magnitude. Learn more, sign, and support at everywoman.org.
International Rescue Committee – Seattle
The International Rescue Committee’s anti-trafficking programs strive to provide timely, high-quality, comprehensive services to survivors of human trafficking. The IRC also works to improve the community response to survivors of trafficking by providing training to local service providers and allied professionals and working to enhance collaboration and coordination among multi-disciplinary professionals on behalf of survivors of human trafficking. The IRC’s goal is to help survivors build lives for themselves that are free from abuse and exploitation. rescue.org/united-states/seattle-wa
Resonance
Resonance is an international development consultancy focused on igniting opportunity in emerging markets. The firm works with companies, NGOs, finance institutions, and international donors to develop new business models and innovative partnerships that improve governance and sustainability outcomes. As part of our work across a number of sectors, Resonance has extensive experience creating shared value public-private partnerships to combat trafficking and reduce supply chain vulnerability. We are currently engaged with USAID on Counter Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) projects in Thailand and across Southeast Asia to address forced labor in the seafood, agriculture, construction, and domestic work sectors. Resonance also supports multinational corporations in their promotion of technologies that enable worker voice, enforcement of fair labor practices, and reduction of incentives for trafficking in their supply chains. resonanceglobal.com
World Justice Project
The World Justice Project (WJP) is an independent, multidisciplinary organization working to advance the rule of law worldwide. Effective rule of law reduces corruption, combats poverty and disease, and protects people from injustices large and small. It is the foundation for communities of justice, opportunity, and peace—underpinning development, accountable government, and respect for fundamental rights. In addition to its research and data initiatives, WJP engages its global network to foster and support locally-led programs that strengthen the rule of law. Seed grants from WJP have supported programs like SASANE Paralegal Training for Trafficking Survivors in Nepal, which places certified paralegals in local police stations to provide frontline assistance for trafficking survivors. And in Kyrgyzstan, WJP recently supported a young lawyer working to end the practice of kidnapping girls for forced marriages. worldjusticeproject.org
Could a New Global Treaty End Violence Against Women and Girls?
By Joanne Lu
Woman holding up the People’s Call to Nations at a signing event in Nepal. Photo courtesy of Every Woman Treaty.
What would happen if every country in the world were legally bound by a comprehensive international treaty against all forms of violence against women and girls? The Every Woman Treaty intends to find out.
The project was launched in 2013 under the name “Everywoman Everywhere” by a global group of women’s rights activists, who determined that there is a large gap in international law regarding the protection of women and girls.
Certainly, the United Nations’ (UN) 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and 2000 Convention against Transnational Organized Crime have all pushed the conversation forward in important and significant ways. But amid the limitations of those existing declarations and conventions, the group saw the urgent need for a legally binding global treaty that holds countries accountable for all forms of violence against women.
Since its launch, the effort has blossomed in a very grassroots fashion into a coalition of more than 1,700 women’s rights advocates and experts, including 840 organizations, in 128 countries.
“I was sold straight away,” says Laurie Tannous, who joined Every Woman Treaty’s Global Working Group in 2016 and serves on their special expert committee on human trafficking. At the time, Tannous – an international business and Canadian immigration attorney – was attending conferences and giving speeches on trafficking, when a new friend introduced her to the Treaty.
“A treaty is a call to action – a collective one,” says Tannous. “And if you have this collective international voice being driven by one document, it keeps things very efficient and powerful.”
Tannous says that when she first got involved, trafficking and modern slavery weren’t yet a major part of the Treaty. Although she is, of course, opposed to violence against women and girls, her work centers on preventing women, children and even men from being smuggled across borders and enslaved.
The group responded to her concerns with what she now recognizes as their emblematic commitment to inclusivity: “Let’s include that, too.”
Today, the group has drafted a “zero draft” or core platform—the framework nations will use to draft the official treaty. The draft has been sent to 2,000 experts for peer-review, and it addresses all types of violence against women, including domestic violence, non-state torture, state-sponsored violence, and workplace violence, as well as trafficking and slavery. It also considers four groups of vulnerable women and girls, three life stages (girls and students, older women and widows of all ages) and specific actionable recommendations for preventing, suppressing and punishing violence against women and girls, including trafficking in persons.
For example, some countries still punish survivors and victims of trafficking and slavery (like sex slaves who are punished for prostitution). This discourages victims from reporting incidents of trafficking, which is absolutely necessary data if countries and municipalities are to work toward eradicating it. The group is aiming for a treaty that prohibits the punishment of survivors and victims, with the hope that in doing so, they would feel safer telling their schools, neighbors, police officers or nurses about the crimes that had been committed against them. Increasing this first level of reporting is a critical first step in tackling the problem.
But in addition to laying out enforceable protocols, Tannous says the goal is also to increase awareness, outreach, and education of the issues and promote effective strategies for eradicating them. For example, the special expert committee on human trafficking identified a huge gap in countries’ understanding of the definition of trafficking. A “lack of clarity in definitions leads to problems in prosecuting violations,” they wrote in their policy memo. In this way, Tannous says, the Treaty is meant to enhance existing UN conventions.
“We can create law all day long, but if it’s not enforced, if it’s not adopted, if it’s not supported, if it’s not talked about – it’s as good as the paper it’s written on, and nothing more,” says Tannous.
At the moment, the Treaty is still in development, as experts review the draft and leaders of the group meet with potential “lead nations,” who will commit to signing the Treaty and serve as its ambassadors. These lead nations will be the ones who bring the Treaty to the UN for adoption by all member states.
The challenge moving forward, according to Tannous, is getting countries to understand that a global treaty to prevent violence against women and girls is not redundant, but rather is a necessary step to closing loopholes in existing international laws and instruments. But once that is clear, she believes the grassroots commitment that launched this effort to begin with will be the same force that keeps the momentum going.
Women in Nepal at a signing event for the People’s Call to Nations. Photo courtesy of Every Woman Treaty.
“Just look at the sheer number of women who have taken their own time to contribute to this effort,” she says. “None of us get paid for this, but we’re so personally vested in it that I think everyone intends to see it through – that OK’s mean action.”
If countries translate their commitments into action, then the Treaty could become the catalyst for a historical change in global norms, the group says. Consider the Tobacco Treaty, which ended smoking on airplanes and in many public spaces. Indeed, with enough action, a treaty to end violence against women and girls could end not only the trafficking of women, but all forms of violence against women and girls. Now, wouldn’t that be a treaty for every woman everywhere.
Veronica Fynn Bruey, Affiliated Faculty Member at Seattle University School of Law
By Amber Cortes
Photo provided by Veronica Fynn Bruey.
“Freedom,” Jean-Paul Satre once wrote, “is what we do with what is done to us.” Professor, lecturer, and award-winning scholar, Veronica Fynn Bruey, has faced some of the most challenging hardships one can imagine: poverty, war, displacement, racism, and violence. Through it all, she found the strength—through her mother, her own personal motivation, her community, and her work, to not only achieve success for herself, but also to help others—specifically victims of human trafficking—find the freedom and protection they deserve.
An Early Life of War and Displacement
Veronica Fynn Bruey was born in Liberia. When she was just 14, the civil war broke out there, and her family became displaced in their own country, and subject to violence and uncertainty. In July 1992, the family decided to flee to Ghana for safety.
“So yeah, that’s how we made it to Ghana. And on a deck of the Ghanaian peacekeeping vessel, three days, in the sunshine and in the rain. No food, no water until we arrived,” she explains.
While in Ghana, the family stayed in a refugee camp. However, things didn’t quite work out as planned, and in 1993, Fynn Bruey’s mother, who was sick, decided to bring the family back to Liberia, despite the ongoing conflict there. But Fynn Bruey, in what she describes as a “life-changing decision,” stayed in Ghana to pursue her education, “because my mom always said: education was the equalizer. And if we needed to make that change and escape the chain of poverty that we constantly had in our family, then I must listen to her and stay back.”
Six Degrees of Affirmation
Veronica Fynn Bruey’s hunger for education turned out to be insatiable, and it led her on her life’s path to earn not one…not two…not three…not four…not even five, but SIX academic degrees.
“People are always fascinated by how I’ve been able to acquire six university degrees given the fact that I came from a war zone,” she says, “and I lost three years of my life that I wasn’t in school, and another two years working, doing my national service in Ghana.”
She’s certainly made up for lost time. Starting in Ghana, with dreams of becoming a medical doctor, Fynn Bruey pursued an undergrad in zoology and biochemistry. But when she wasn’t accepted into the highly competitive medical school there, she didn’t fret. “I wasn’t going to waste my time and be like, without medical school, I’m doomed.”
Instead, Fynn Bruey headed to Canada to continue her education as a refugee-sponsored student, where she earned a BA from the University of British Columbia. She chose to study psychology.
“I came to Canada with a lot of trauma of abuse, I mean, both physical and sexual abuse, from my childhood, and it had haunted me a lot. So, I didn’t do psychology to help anybody else—just myself!” Fynn Bruey explains.
Soon afterwards, Bruey decided to go to England to get her Master’s in Public Health. She liked the more holistic approach of working with populations, and saw it as a better fit for her than medicine. The focus of her dissertation was on refugee mental health. “Of course, you can see where all this is going,” she says with a laugh.
Throughout her life, Fynn Bruey’s studies have been inexorably intertwined with her lived experience as a displaced person and refugee survivor of abuse who grew up with a single mother. But it wasn’t until 2003, when she was introduced by a mentor to a groundbreaking new book at the time: The Natashas: Inside the Global Sex Trade by Victor Malarek, that she encountered the term ‘human trafficking.’ It struck a chord.
“And so, I read it, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is not very much different from my experience of violence. You know, it’s not necessarily… in my case, nobody bought me or took me by force, it was some sort of coercion.” The book, she says, had a profound effect. “So, I was like, this is it for me—I’m going to explore this area, I’m going to give my all into it, because this violence has to stop!”
Fynn Bruey got shortlisted by a Government of Canada program to go to Geneva in 2006. There, she researched health and human trafficking at the International Organization for Migration, and started hanging out at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with hopes of using her own experience as a refugee to jump start a career working with displaced people and combating human trafficking.
“I was constantly told I needed a law degree to work there. And I just couldn’t understand! I have three university degrees, and the lived experience of being a refugee, is that not good enough? Yeah… I still needed a law degree.” So Fynn Bruey got her Master’s in Law at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, focusing her dissertation on the legal discrepancies between protecting refugees and internally displaced persons. Prior to her Master’s in Law, she served as a research analyst for the Government of British Columbia’s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons.
While in the program, Fynn Bruey was encouraged to get her PhD in law as well. “My supervisor said to me, you know, you are not married, you don’t have children. This is a good opportunity to do a PhD!” Eventually, she ended up at the Australia National University (ANU). But when she started applying for teaching positions, she was told she needed yet another degree… a bachelor’s in law.
“Actually, I did it concurrently with the University of London and ANU. It nearly killed me,” she says, laughing. “But I’m somebody who you can never tell that something is impossible to do. Because I will prove to you, with this incessant and daring personality, that I can do it. Even if it costs my own death, I will do it!”
Connecting the Dots of a Clandestine Industry
Fynn Bruey’s wealth of knowledge that comes from studying over half a dozen fields around the globe deeply informs her work in human trafficking. It’s because, she says, these fields—feminism and reproductive rights, public health, migration and displacement, indigenous and race studies, systemic violence, and international law—are all linked.
A cross-disciplinary approach, Fynn Bruey says, addresses the need to see human trafficking as a complex issue. “You need to bring in the feminism aspect, you need to bring the racism aspect, you need to bring a public health aspect into it. You need to bring in patriarchy and power and control, economics and finance.”
For example, understanding psychology, systemic violence, and international law comes in handy when dealing with one aspect of human trafficking—coercion. The United Nations defines human trafficking as recruitment or harboring of people “by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion.” When people are coerced, Fynn Bruey says, they “consent” because they have no other alternative. Another part of what makes human trafficking such a difficult issue to address is its clandestine nature.
“It operates in secret. People who are vulnerable to these situations will never see the light of day; they’re locked up somewhere. Nobody knows whether they exist, or what is happening to them.”
This lack of data makes it hard to actually convict and prosecute traffickers. According to the latest 2019 Trafficking in Persons report, globally the number of new legislation passed to address human trafficking has reduced over the years, and prosecutions and convictions remain startlingly low in proportion to the number of victims reported.
Fynn Bruey says she’d rather spend years developing lasting solutions to combat human trafficking, than to simply adopt a unilateral response to the issue, which is “to limit a holistic or comprehensive approach that could be more lasting, that would be durable, and more sustainable.”
To that end, Fynn Bruey and her husband have started a non-profit called Tuki-Tumarankeh, which is a Wolof expression meaning, “It is the traveler who faces the most difficulty.” The non-profit is dedicated to advancing the welfare of displaced people through research, advocacy, and information, and publishes the world’s only academic journal devoted to raising the profile of displaced persons, the Journal of Internal Displacement (JID).
“That’s How Much It Is Part of My Core”
Throughout her remarkable life, Fynn Bruey’s stayed close to her roots—as a Liberian, a child of war, and a refugee from a very humble beginning. Drawing on her own experiences of trauma and abuse, Bruey is now committed to making sure that vulnerable people—women and children especially—can stay safe and protected, because, she says, “that’s what honestly keeps me grounded. And keeps me remembering that I can never forget where I came from, so that I can continue with that spirit of giving back to society, giving back to community, because a lot of people sacrificed for me to be where I am today.”
Fynn Bruey’s comprehensive education is a powerful tool she’s developed for fighting human trafficking. That, and her steadfast determination and indefatigable spirit to keep working, no matter what.
“Nothing anybody can do or say would deter me from continuing this journey,” Fynn Bruey says. “Because that’s how much it is part of my core.”
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
Einstein Rising
Einstein Rising empowers Africa’s social entrepreneurs through its SME business development curriculum and provides access to startup capital. These wealth creators develop for-profit companies that tackle entrenched social and environmental issues without sacrificing the financial bottom line. einsteinrising.org
FIUTS
The Foundation for International Understanding Through Students (FIUTS) advances international understanding through cross-cultural experiences, student leadership, and community connections. Founded at the University of Washington in 1948, FIUTS programs connect international students, U.S. students, children and K-12 schools, and members of the community through programs that inspire dialogue and cultural exchange. fiuts.org
Gorman Consulting
Gorman Consulting is a firm that provides specialized measurement and evaluation services, primarily in the health sector. gormanconsulting.org
Curt Bailey Begins as President & CEO at Bloodworks June, 2019
PRESS RELEASE
Curt Bailey, MBA, newly announced president & CEO of Bloodworks Northwest
Seattle, WA – Bloodworks Northwest’s Board of Trustees has announced the appointment of Curt Bailey, MBA, as Bloodwork’s president and CEO, succeeding James P. AuBuchon, MD who served in the position for 11 years. Curt Bailey, a leading expert in healthcare transformation, began his duties June 3, 2019, following Dr. AuBuchon’s retirement May 3, 2019.
“We are fortunate to have found such a capable individual to build on the legacy of Dr. AuBuchon’s extraordinary leadership in providing Bloodworks with a sound foundation to now pivot into an innovative future of improved blood health, providing the best care to everyone in our community and preserving the 75-year legacy of the organization,” said Craig Smith, MD, Chair, Bloodworks Board of Trustees. “I’m confident Bailey’s exceptional knowledge of the healthcare industry, business breadth and creativity will guide Bloodworks forward to a bold future in the evolving healthcare market.”
Partnerships are key to driving large-scale investment in the world’s natural capital
by Seth Olson, Analyst, Innovation
In 2014, Credit Suisse released a groundbreaking report that called attention to the 250-350 billion dollar funding gap in the conservation of natural resources. Several entrepreneurs, impact investors, and donor organizations reframed this gap as an opportunity. They began driving capital toward conservation and regenerative enterprises in their communities and across the globe.
Five years later, the growth of the conservation finance industry has led to better data analysis—and more sophisticated models. Organizations are realizing that they can amplify their impact by working together, rather than trying to take deals from start to finish on their own. Moving forward, it is partnerships that will accelerate the conservation finance industry’s growth.
A UN report in May raised alarm about an increasing rate of species going extinct globally, with nearly 1 million plant and animal species at risk. It may be tempting to give up in the face of such overwhelming numbers. But the leaders of two Global Washington member organizations, the Woodland Park Zoo and the Seattle Aquarium, reminded us in a recent Seattle Times op-ed that “…we are not too late to act.” In fact, now is the time to accelerate the progress we have already made, and to look for new opportunities for transformational change when it comes to conserving life below the water (SDG 14) and life on land (SDG 15).
Global Washington’s latest issue campaign examines how wildlife conservation intersects with human development. Last week, Global Washington supported an event organized by the World Affairs Council, focused on local organizations that are leading the world in efforts to combat illegal wildlife trafficking. In this month’s issue brief we explore the various strategies that our members and others are using to protect endangered animals and the natural resources that we all depend on. Our Goalmaker this month is Alejandro Grajal, President and CEO of Woodland Park Zoo, and our featured organization is Vulcan, whose data-driven solutions to conservation reflect founder Paul Allen’s commitment to technology as a force multiplier for change.
I hope you enjoy this month’s issue as a bit of summer reading. Not only are the animals adorable, but the fact that their fates and ours are so closely entwined means that in helping them, we are also helping ourselves.
How Can Wildlife Conservation Support Human Development?
By Joanne Lu
Photo provided by The Snow Leopard Trust.
Conservation and human development are often presented as two separate issues with little overlap: one promotes the wellbeing of our planet and other species, while the other cares for people. But a new UN assessment is warning that a million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction within decades – and it’s threatening human life, as well.
Regardless of whether we live in wealthy or poor countries, our fates as humans are inextricably tied to those of other species. Together, we inhabit ecosystems that supply us with basic services such as food, water and air. Just in the Americas alone, natural ecosystems provide humans an estimated $24 trillion worth of economic value every year, equivalent to the region’s entire gross domestic product.
But even though the earth is supplying people with more food, energy and materials than ever, the UN report says that the activity of more than 7 billion people is altering our natural world at a rate that is “unprecedented in human history.” Increasingly, our farming, fishing, poaching, logging and mining are undermining nature’s ability to continue to provide those very things for us in the future, in addition to other services like water quality regulation.
At the same time, global warming caused by our activities is further driving some wildlife toward extinction. Already the world is 1 degree Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels. If that increases to 2 degrees, the report estimates that about 5 percent of species globally are at risk of climate-related extinction. If temperatures continue to rise to 4.3 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the existence of 16 percent of species will be threatened.
As cohabitants of our environment, it is our human responsibility to respect and protect wildlife. But we also need them to thrive in order for us to thrive. We depend on them as food supplies, pest control, pollinators, medicine, genetic resources and centers of tourism. Our fates are so entwined with wildlife and their habitats that the UN report estimates that the current negative trends will “undermine progress towards 80 percent” of the Sustainable Development Goals relating to poverty, hunger, health, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.
“Our wildlife is not an optional extra, but the basis upon which all our livelihoods and progress depend,” the late Bradnee Chambers, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Migratory Species, said in 2017. “Only by integrating wildlife conservation with sustainable development will we be able to protect the remaining species on Earth, species from which we benefit in so many different ways.”
That’s why organizations like Vulcan support work in Zambia to protect wildlife from poaching, trafficking, and loss of habitat, as well as to prevent human-animal conflicts. As the human population around South Luangwa National Park increases with development of the area, so, too, there’s been an increase in community conflicts with elephants that are raiding crops and damaging properties. By engaging with the local communities, Vulcan and its partners are finding ways to mitigate these conflicts in ways that protect both the elephants and the farmers. Interventions include elephant restraining fences, chili peppers as a deterrence, watch towers and elephant-safe grain stores. In addition, Vulcan used its technology to help compile the Great Elephant Census, the first aerial survey in 40 years of African savanna elephants across the continent.
Similarly, the Snow Leopard Trust works closely with local communities to protect the endangered and elusive snow leopard and its mountain habitat. Established in 1981 by a staff member of Woodland Park Zoo, the Trust was one of the first conservation organizations to make the economic and social needs of communities in the snow leopard’s habitat part of their conservation solution.
The Snow Leopard Enterprises program, for example, creates economic opportunities (handicraft businesses) for herder women in snow leopard habitats. This financial boost makes families more economically resilient to the occasional loss of livestock to snow leopards. In turn, herders are less inclined to retaliate against the snow leopards. Additional cash bonuses are also awarded to communities if they uphold their conservation commitments.
Woodland Park Zoo continues to partner with the Snow Leopard Trust and supports its conservation programs in Kyrgyzstan. The Zoo carries out other conservation work, as well. Its flagship program works to protect tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea (PNG) using a community-based strategy similar to what the Snow Leopard Trust employs. In 2009, the Zoo celebrated the PNG government’s approval of a tree-kangaroo habitat as a conservation area with the highest level of protection, including against any form of resource extraction. Since then, the program has been empowering indigenous communities to take on the long-term, sustainable management of the area.
Ecki, a young Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo born at Woodland Park Zoo. The zoo’s Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program preserves tree kangaroos’ natural habitat in Papua New Guinea’s Huon Peninsula and supports livelihoods of the indigenous people there. (Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo).
This vision of human development alongside conservation has birthed some unlikely partnerships. Recently Americares, an organization best known for its donations of medicine and medical supplies, launched a partnership with African Parks to provide comprehensive health care for the communities that live in and around conservation areas. African Parks manages 15 wildlife parks in nine countries, but the partnership will begin by serving nearly 100,000 people near two of Malawi’s most important conservation areas.
Conservation efforts are also required thousands of miles away from the habitats of endangered and threatened species. Organizations like Fair Trade USA and Earthworm (formerly The Forest Trust) work with companies to ensure that their sourcing and production don’t harm wildlife habitats. Among its other efforts to promote environmental sustainability, Fair Trade USA partners with Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions, which provides businesses expertise and tools for furthering their commitments to sustainable seafood.
Earthworm uses tools like High Conservation Value (HCV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) forest assessments to help guide activities away from important wildlife areas. It also carries out work on the ground to help mitigate human-animal conflicts in Malaysia, for example, or to teach palm oil plantation companies how to protect orangutan habitats.
These organizations are all taking important steps toward protecting the biodiversity of our planet. Still, the UN assessment warns that the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 may only be achieved through widespread “transformative changes” in the ways we produce and consume everything from energy to food to water to materials.
That’s why organizations like the Seattle Aquarium and Woodland Park Zoo are so committed to inspiring conservation at home. By providing visceral experiences, education, and tools for the public to participate in conservation, as well as their own commitment to conservation principles, these organizations aim to transform how the broader Seattle community views and interacts with life all around us. Changing that perspective is the first step to making conscious choices that move us toward sustainable development – not only for humans, but for our whole world.
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The following Global Washington members are working at the intersection of conservation and human development.
Americares
Americares understands that the health of humans and the health of the natural environment are inextricably linked. In May 2019, Americares announced it would be teaming up with wildlife conservation organization, African Parks, to strengthen the capacity of local health centers providing care to people living in and around Africa’s protected areas. The partnership launched in Malawi, where Americares and African Parks will improve access to health care at four health centers, serving nearly 100,000 people near two of Malawi’s most important conservation areas—Liwonde National Park and the Majete Wildlife Reserve—both of which are managed by African Parks on behalf of the Malawian Government. The new partnership will allow the organization to carry out its mission with vulnerable populations living in close proximity to wildlife while advancing conservation efforts that protect ecosystems and benefit communities. americares.org
Earthworm
Earthworm is a global non-profit organization that works with companies and other stakeholders to make value chains an engine of prosperity for communities and ecosystems. Active in key commodity producing regions around the world, Earthworm helps companies to ensure that their sourcing and production does not impact wildlife habitat, including that of endangered and threatened species. Tools such as High Conservation Value (HCV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) forest assessments help guide development activities away from areas that are important for wildlife. In several regions, Earthworm works directly on specific wildlife management challenges. For example, in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Earthworm staff have trained palm oil plantation companies and others on how to better protect orangutan habitat. In Sabah, Malaysia, Earthworm is working with farmers, plantations, and government authorities to find solutions for mitigating human-elephant conflict in areas where elephants roam beyond the boundaries of protected areas. earthworm.org
Fair Trade USA
Fair Trade USA is a non-profit organization that promotes sustainable livelihoods for farmers and workers, protects fragile ecosystems, and builds strong, transparent supply chains through independent, third-party certification. Its trusted Fair Trade Certified™ seal signifies that rigorous standards have been met in the production, trade and promotion of Fair Trade products from over 50 countries across the globe. FairTrade partners with Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions, a leading conservation group, with the goal of improving ocean health and ensuring a long-term supply of seafood. fairtradecertified.org
Global Family Travels
In partnership with non-profit organizations and schools, Global Family Travels provides sustainable travel itineraries that foster cross-cultural understanding and align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 15: Life on Land, SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, and SDG 4: Quality Education. For example, families might elect to travel to Zimbabwe in support of conservation of the African Painted Dog. globalfamilytravels.com
The Snow Leopard Trust
The Snow Leopard Trust aims to better understand the endangered snow leopard, and to protect the cat in partnership with the communities that share its habitat. The organization has programs and staff in the five countries in Central Asia that together contain over 75% of the world’s population of wild snow leopards. With support from around the world, the Snow Leopard Trust encourages and empowers people who live in the cat’s habitat to help protect their local wildlife and ecosystems. snowleopard.org
Resonance
Resonance is a global development consultancy that harnesses the power of collaboration to enable communities, companies and governments to drive market-based solutions to global challenges, including in natural resources conservation. In East Africa, Resonance worked with conservation stakeholders on two key partnerships: One was designed to reduce illegal wildlife poaching and trafficking through a reporting and enforcement technology platform; the other helped tourist lodges and hotels source food and services locally. Additionally, Resonance worked in SE Asia to mobilize private-sector resources and investment to strengthen sustainable fishing practices and diversify economies in coastal communities. In the Philippines, Resonance developed a national enforcement partnership between a telco, Microsoft, maritime law enforcement, and fishing communities to reduce illegal fishing, resulting in 10,000 reports, and a seizure of more than 4,000 pieces of contraband. resonanceglobal.com
Seattle Aquarium
The Seattle Aquarium is a respected authority on the Salish Sea, Washington Coast and greater Pacific Ocean, and serves as the largest platform for ocean conservation and engagement in the Pacific Northwest. Through emerging partnerships and community programming the Aquarium is fostering an emerging ocean ethic, increasing awareness and taking action to help preserve and protect our marine environment. The Aquarium offers a unique window into ocean conservation by offering: compelling exhibits and event experiences; education programs for people of all ages and backgrounds; community outreach to underserved communities; conservation research that advances understanding and improves management of marine species; advocacy and policy work; an award-winning volunteer program; and more. Guided by our mission of Inspiring Conservation of Our Marine Environment, the Aquarium has reached over 27 million visitors, two million school children and is taking on the awesome responsibility of protecting our one world ocean and the amazing creatures that call it home. seattleaquarium.org
Vulcan
Vulcan Inc. pursues initiatives and projects that seek to change the trajectory of some of the world’s most difficult challenges. Vulcan works to improve our planet and support our communities through catalytic technology, philanthropy, scientific research, story-telling and commercial ventures. Founded by technologist and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, Vulcan continues to develop and grow the ideas about which he was passionate. vulcan.com
Woodland Park Zoo
Woodland Park Zoo saves species and works to inspire everyone to make conservation a priority in their lives. The Zoo supports conservation programs in over 30 landscapes around the world, with a strategy aimed at habitat and species conservation, research, education, local capacity building and community management. This includes multiple conservation projects here in the Pacific Northwest, from monitoring wolverine recovery in the Cascades to bringing back the northwestern pond turtle from near extinction. Internationally, Woodland Park Zoo’s Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program has worked with indigenous communities in Papua New Guinea since 1996 to protect the endangered tree kangaroo and its rain forest habitat. In 2009, the Zoo partnered with 50 communities to create the country’s first-ever community managed Conservation Area. The program is successfully working with community members on scientific research, land-use mapping, education, health, and directly improving livelihoods through the international sale of conservation YUS coffee, which can be purchased right here in Seattle. zoo.org
Informing Change: Vulcan’s Data-Driven Approach to Conservation
By Amber Cortes
Empowered by Paul Allen’s vision to make a positive difference in the world, Vulcan shares a commitment to improving our planet. As Vulcan looks to tackle some of the world’s hardest problems, it asks, “What solution should exist that doesn’t?” This question has led Vulcan to develop and deploy a range of solutions to help with the protection and conservation of wildlife, ocean health, and their ecosystems, including EarthRanger, Allen Coral Atlas, Skylight, and the Great Elephant Census.
Based on his time at Microsoft, Allen had the power to change things on a global scale, and as a billionaire, his philanthropic impact could be felt on a scale far and wide.
But Allen was a pragmatist at heart, so he wanted to be realistic. That meant he had to focus on not just any kind of global problems, but certain kinds of problems—ones that have an ‘accelerating curve’ of urgency to them, and come with only a limited window of time to figure out solutions.
“In other words, what that means is that the longer we wait to try to solve those problems, the harder it becomes to solve them,” says James Deutsch, director of biodiversity and strategy at Vulcan. “And that’s obviously true about climate change. But it’s also true, for example, about biodiversity loss or disintegration of natural marine ecosystems.”
A recent UN assessment said that due to human-induced changes to the natural environment, around 1 million species already face extinction, and that “…there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, which is already at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years”—unless action is taken.
As an avid scuba diver and lover of nature, Allen saw the destruction of wildlife and marine ecosystems for himself—like the mass coral bleaching that caused half the Great Barrier Reef to die. He also recognized that the economic consequences tied to the loss of coral reefs could cost up to $1 trillion globally, and decimate local economies.
Allen, who, together with Bill Gates, helped revolutionize the world with Microsoft, knew better than anyone that tech and data-based solutions could help solve complex global problems in ways that struggles for policy change alone could not reach.
For example, Vulcan initiated the Great Elephant Census after China and Japan
started loosening some of their restrictions on the sale of ivory. Elephant poaching in Africa accelerated in response to the new demand—and by 2013, conservationists on the ground in Africa knew there was a poaching crisis. But anecdotal evidence was not enough to convince the international community that there was a problem.
The Great Elephant Census was the first ever effort to count all of the elephants in the African Savannah—spanning three years, costing about $7 million, and involving 20 governments and multiple NGO partners to carry out the surveys.
The census proved there had been an alarming decline in elephant populations, directly linked to poaching. And according to Deutsch, the real power of the data was that it was quantitative, not anecdotal, so it forced people to look at the truth—and take action.
“It provided crystal clear results that over the previous seven years, the population of elephants had declined by 30%. And people couldn’t hide from that data,” says Deutsch.
The results of the census reinforced the work of many partners, from the U.S. government to conservation NGOs, to persuade the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to agree that all nations should close their ivory markets. In 2016 China announced a shutdown of all ivory trade within its borders.
The ripple effect of The Great Elephant Census worked locally, too, resulting in significantly increased government clampdowns on illegal wildlife destruction in Tanzania and Mozambique (two countries shown to be at the ‘epicenter of poaching’), and renewed conservation efforts in places like West Africa’s W-Complex of parks, where elephant populations were doing surprisingly well.
One important role data technology can take on in the fight against wildlife loss is centralizing information for a quick, organized response. For example, national parks in Africa were not getting real-time information to ranger patrols. So Vulcan developed EarthRanger—a comprehensive software program for tracking wildlife, rangers, vehicles, and poaching incidents and integrating that information for park managers on a single big screen to optimize their deployment of rangers and decision-making.
EarthRanger is now active in 14 parks in Africa (with plans for global expansion). But its success only happened because researchers spent time in the field asking people who were trying to protect wildlife in parks what tools they needed to do their job better. In fact, Vulcan spends a significant portion of time and energy on the R&D phase for its philanthropic projects—which is just what any tech company would do to guarantee the best user experience for its product.
For example, The Allen Coral Atlas is the first global mosaic map of the world’s coral reefs, developed because there was no one map of coral reef damage across the world—just a handful of institutions, communities, and researchers who were mapping and monitoring their own reefs on a local level, which was expensive and often cumbersome. With the advancement of satellite technology, Allen saw potential.
The Allen Coral Atlas is meant to be an all-purpose tool for researchers, divers, universities, governments, and scientists alike. That means that, in terms of user experience, there are lots of different uses—and potential users.
“It’s a really interesting hybrid process that includes a good deal of traditional philanthropy and science, but then really intensive user research and interviews to figure out what the people doing the work in their communities, like coral reef restoration, need,” explains Deutsch.
Similarly, Allen recognized that the new higher resolution satellites being launched into space could provide better data for combatting another global biodiversity challenge—the theft of fish by illegal international trawlers from some of the poorest countries in the world. That led to Skylight, launched in 2017, a real-time, AI-powered system for alerting developing countries and their NGO partners of illegal fishing activity in their territorial waters and protected areas.
Vulcan’s technology and data projects take advantage of the tremendous pool of talent in Seattle and partnerships with the tech sector. But it’s not just issues abroad that get Vulcan’s attention. On the local front, Vulcan has donated millions to support statewide conservation efforts. For instance, Vulcan helped get I 1401, an anti-trafficking statewide ballot measure, passed in Washington state in 2015.
“And that was a really interesting case in which I think Paul and Vulcan felt that there was a moral imperative to get our own house in order on this international issue. And not to be part of the problem ourselves as a community,” says Deutsch.
Deutsch adds that Vulcan’s local conservation efforts can serve as a model of leadership—and not just in the philanthropic realm, but across other business sectors, as well. Vulcan Real Estate, for example, was the world’s first salmon-safe accredited developer.
Climate change and the unprecedented decimation of wildlife and natural systems by human activity are daunting, huge problems that seem impossible to stop. But for someone who works on giant global issues like the environment and public health, Deutsch sees hope in small successes, pointing to the growth of green energy and the electrification of transport systems as paradigm-changers.
“The question then is,” he asks, “is it possible that those specific successes could radiate out into a more general success, that we could leave a world to our kids and grandkids in 2050, and beyond? A world that is still functional, life supporting, rich, beautiful, and a nice place to live? And I guess part of the answer is that each of those small successes has to start to knit together into a global change.”
For Vulcan, it’s clear from the data that for each small success, the numbers can really add up.
Alejandro Grajal, President and CEO of Woodland Park Zoo
By: Arielle Dreher
While politicians and celebrities alike routinely rally communities to save the planet, other not-as-obvious, yet incredibly influential forces are already at work: zoos.
Alejandro Grajal knows a thing or two about how zoos can play a role in large-scale conservation efforts. He was in graduate school, finishing a PhD in zoology from the University of Florida, during the conservation biology movement of the 1980s, and he has been invested in its progress and impacts ever since. Grajal, the current CEO and President of the Woodland Park Zoo, believes that conservation efforts ultimately start and end with humans.
“One of the things that has been pretty evident to me from the very beginning is that even though conservation or wildlife conservation is a biological problem, the causes and the solutions are human because extinction and habitat loss and so on are created by humans, but also can be solved by humans,” he said.
Conservation has been at the heart of Grajal’s studies and his professional career. He came to the Woodland Park Zoo in 2016 after beginning his professional life at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York (which runs the Bronx Zoo) and then leading the Center for Conservation Leadership at the Chicago Zoological Society. He has specialized primarily in field conservation, meaning protecting large areas of habitat and land, primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean. He has also published numerous articles and conducted research on conservation for most of his career.
Zoos play a vital role in conservation efforts globally. Grajal’s work not only at the Woodland Park Zoo but also as a board member for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which accredits all zoos and aquariums in North America and abroad, is conservation-focused. In fact, Grajal says they are the second largest source of funding to international conservation efforts worldwide. According to the AZA, the 230 zoos and aquariums in the association have donated over $1 billion in funds to field conservation in the past five years.
About 8 percent of the zoo’s annual budget is spent on international conservation, Grajal said. The Woodland Park Zoo has nearly 20 conservation flagship projects that involve multi-decade investments in field conservation in places as far away as Papua New Guinea and as close as the North Cascades.
In addition to investment, which Grajal says is the most significant way zoos play a role in conservation, they also literally play a role in conserving species. Endangered species, or animals that are in danger of going extinct, are often preserved as a result of zoos and aquariums taking in those animals. Grajal explained that this process is vital to the species’ survival. For example, the Woodland Park Zoo currently has three Malayan tigers. There are only about 200 of these tigers left on earth, and the majority of those left are in zoos. With less than 100 wild Malayan tigers, the ones living in zoos might be the last surviving animals of their kind in a few years.
“The population in zoos and aquariums right now is radically valuable to keep the genetic makeup of the population for the future, because the population in the wild is not thriving,” Grajal said.
The Woodland Park Zoo is AZA-accredited, meaning it could also hold or keep species protected in the association’s program SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction). SAFE is a global strategy to ensure that endangered species are protected, Grajal said. There are currently 30 SAFE action plans for species, with more in the works.
Conservation efforts taken by outside organizations and even zoos in the U.S. are, in the end, only drops in the bucket, and Grajal recognizes this. And yet, sociological and psychological research conducted at the Woodland Park Zoo to evaluate the visitor experience has led to interesting findings.
“We know for sure that one of the critical elements of the zoo visit is that people have this flow of positive emotions,” Grajal said.
This is in part due to the connections with animals, as well as visiting with loved ones, Grajal said.
“The combination of really strong social brainwork for the visit and the emotions that are driven by the zoo really drive an unusual combination of willingness to act,” Grajal said.
The question is how to turn that positive emotion into action. Or as Grajal says, “How do we get those emotions supercharged so we can drive people towards pro-environmental behaviors?”
While the science and research at Woodland Park Zoo shows the zoo visit can lead to a powerful emotive experience, visiting the zoo only lasts four to five hours at most. To keep that positive emotive experience, Grajal said, the zoo’s social media investment aims to create more opportunities for people to engage in conservation.
The organization currently has 54,500 followers on Instagram and more than 32 million views on its Youtube channel. In addition, its website address is literally zoo.org, which doesn’t hurt the organization’s online search rankings.
Ultimately, Grajal said all this content points to what needs to happen to actually conserve the planet and our shared environment: consumers changing their behaviors.
“We try to keep the fun and family and hopeful message of coming to the zoo, while at the same time creating opportunities for people to engage in conservation, mostly by taking specific consumer positions such as composting, recycling or buying sustainable seafood products, or eliminating single-use plastics from your life,” Grajal said.
The zoo can leverage its substantial social media following when the environment is threatened by policy proposals, as well. For example, The Woodland Park Zoo sent more than 10,000 signatures as a part of a petition to Congress when the Trump Administration attempted to change the Endangered Species Act. Grajal expects to grow the zoo’s role as part of a larger social movement towards conservation.
“I believe that one of the challenges we face in terms of conservation is the support of the public, regardless of their political ideology or their socioeconomic status. It’s been for a while that conservation has kind of morphed into or been pigeon-holed into this kind of white, middle class values ideal, but the reality is that conservation and the conservation of wildlife affects everybody, rich and poor, different cultures, different languages,” he said.
By engaging zoo visitors and contributing to a wider social movement towards conservation, the zoo also plans to continue to measure its impact and see if social responsibility grows. Ultimately, the health and survival of all is at stake.
“It’s really important that people understand that their actions and everyday decisions have global implications,” Grajal said. “And all those things (like eliminating single-use plastic) look very flimsy, very small when you do them by yourself, but the reality is that if you get millions joining it, you have a significant impact. You drive corporations and businesses to make responsible decisions, and then we have positive feedback in which both consumers and providers and policy all move in the right direction.”
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
Philanthropy Northwest
Philanthropy Northwest is the network for philanthropists of all types who are committed to Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. We promote, facilitate and drive collaborative action by community investors to build resilient, equitable and inclusive communities. philanthropynw.org
PwC
PwC helps resolve complex issues and identifies opportunities. PwC bring a global perspective along with in-depth knowledge of local, state and US issues, and focus on audit and assurance, tax and consulting services. Additionally, in the US, PwC concentrates on 16 key industries and provides targeted services that include — but are not limited to — human resources, deals, forensics, and consulting services. PwC’s reputation lies in building lasting relationships with clients and focusing on delivering value in all they do. pwc.com
Gain practical strategies to advance your organization. Learn alongside a trusted community of leaders of global NGOs and nonprofits, foundations and related organizations, who are dedicated to their work and to each other.
On Thursday, June 11, 2019, the World Affairs Council of Seattle hosted an event to highlight the alarming increase in wildlife poaching and trafficking of illegal animal products globally. With spokespersons from University of Washington, Vulcan, Woodland Park Zoo and the Port of Seattle, the event gave a sense of the scale of the challenge, as well as what local organizations are doing to address it.
As a community partner to WAC Seattle, Global Washington supported the event and distributed copies of a new issue brief with specifics about organizations that have ties to Washington state and are working at the intersection of wildlife conservation and human development.
The event opened with a lively presentation by Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife Detective Lauren Wendt, together with her partner, a Labrador retriever named Benny, who helps track down smugglers of illegal wildlife products. Together Detective Wendt and K9 Officer Benny patrol the state’s ports of entry to shut down illegal trafficking operations.
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife Detective Lauren Wendt with her K9 partner, Benny.
By Alejandro Grajal and Robert W. Davidson
Special to The Times
Everyone deserves the opportunity to share in the wonder of nature, but the fact is that many species around the world need our help. The United Nations last week released urgent and sobering findings from a three-year research project forecasting the extinction of nearly 1 million animal and plant species due to climate change and human impacts to the environment.
In the report, 450 scientists sounded the alarm and clearly described the impending extinction crisis. It is hard not to feel overwhelmed and even paralyzed by what seems to be a global disaster that none of us can avert. As leaders of two of the region’s best-known cultural institutions focused on conserving the environment — Seattle Aquarium and Woodland Park Zoo — we feel it is vitally important, at what feels like an especially dark moment in time, to stress that we are not too late to act.
Health is one of the most critical parts of the Sustainable Development Goals to which all governments and agencies across the globe have committed to achieving by 2030. Women and girls are an important part of health programs and services, as they are not just consumers of services but also a part of service delivery. Health programs have been built on universal principles and frameworks, with the aim of reaching the maximum number of individuals. But sometimes these programs are more focused on reproduction and maternal health, including service delivery, and neglect to include women and girls as individuals, or acknowledge their personal agency. This critical aspect should be an integral part of ideating, planning, policy-making, programming and implementation. Continue Reading
This past Sunday, I was reflecting on my incredible experience of being a mother. I have two wonderful kids who fill my heart with joy and my house with pop songs and stinky soccer cleats. However, giving birth to these kiddos was not so easy. In fact, one took 39 hours to be born, and with the other, I experienced post-partum hemorrhaging.
As hard as childbirth was, I also recognize my privileged circumstances living in Seattle as a white woman. I had both a doula and a midwife, and I gave birth in a hospital with extensive support. Such support is frequently absent for women in developing countries, and indeed also for many women of color in the U.S. And without quality care, the consequences can be dire. The World Health Organization estimates that 830 women globally die every day in childbirth or from preventable complications related to pregnancy. Every single day.
At Global Washington this month we are shining the spotlight on one aspect of childbirth that is often overlooked. A birth attendant is often the most critical person in preventing maternal and newborn death, and yet she is also often the least supported caregiver, and frequently faces the brunt of emotional or physical abuse. The contributions of birth attendants – the nurses, midwives and Aunties all over the world – are critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing maternal and newborn deaths globally.
Fortunately, there are organizations right here in Washington state helping to increase the number of skilled birth attendants and supporting their work. In this month’s newsletter you’ll learn about how PATH collaborates with clinical providers to develop tools and technologies that can make their jobs easier, and also makes sure they have systems in place to continue to improve the quality of care. In addition, we spotlight the amazing career journey of Heidi Breeze-Harris, co-founder of One By One, and the current executive director of PRONTO International.
Furthermore, I hope you can join me and our event partner, the Washington Global Health Alliance (WGHA), for an event on May 22 on the role of birth attendants in improving maternal and newborn health. We’ll hear from experts at PRONTO International, Health Alliance International, Worldwide Fistula Fund, and the Kati Collective.
This issue campaign was inspired by the upcoming Women Deliver conference in Vancouver, B.C., which will explore gender equality and the health, rights, and wellbeing of girls and women. We’ll continue to bring you context related to maternal health over the next several weeks. I hope you will join in the conversation.
Investing in Birth Attendants Reduces Maternal Mortality and Improves Overall Care
By Joanne Lu
In this PRONTO simulation, Dr. Leah cares for a new mother and baby immediately following birth. Simulation is an important way for providers to practice patient-centered, respectful maternity care. Photo provided by PRONTO International.
Every woman deserves to give birth safely and with dignity. Yet sadly, maternal death during childbirth is not yet a thing of the past. Despite immense progress between 1990 and 2015 that nearly halved the global maternal mortality rate, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 830 women around the world still die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. By 2030, the international community aims to reduce maternal mortality by 68 percent. But achieving that will require a concerted push to not only improve skilled delivery for mothers around the world but also build their trust through respectful care.
Safe birth environments require many functioning systems to work together. A single missing element can be dangerous, even fatal, for mothers and their babies. These elements include timely transportation, safe blood for transfusion, clean water and, perhaps most importantly, skilled birth attendants.
According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and WHO, the presence of a skilled birth attendant – whether a medical doctor, nurse or midwife – can reduce the risk of death or stillbirth from delivery-related complications by about 20 percent. Yet only 78 percent of births in the world occur with assistance from a skilled birth attendant. In West and Central Africa, the coverage is a mere 56 percent. Without trained attendants who can recognize and respond to deadly complications such as hemorrhage or sepsis, about three-quarters of all maternal deaths occur during delivery and in the immediate postpartum period.
That’s why organizations like Maternity Foundation are developing training resources for skilled birth attendants in low- and middle-income countries. Over the last six years, Maternity Foundation, Copenhagen University and University of Southern Denmark have refined the “Safe Delivery App” as a training tool and job aid that is being used in over 40 countries. Primarily based on WHO guidelines, the app includes easy-to-understand clinical modules, essential practical procedures, action cards for emergencies and a comprehensive drug list. A randomized controlled trial in Ethiopia as well as case studies in other countries have shown that usage of the app has not only resulted in a marked increase in health workers’ skills and knowledge, but also in their confidence, especially in managing complications.
Training is one crucial aspect of improving maternal and neonatal care, but increasingly, the conversation is turning toward the well-being of the birth attendants themselves. According to Heidi Breeze-Harris, executive director of PRONTO International, birth attendants – particularly midwives and nurses, who are mostly women – are often the worst paid and worst treated of care providers.
When birth attendants are overworked, underpaid, traumatized by seeing too many deaths and treated horribly by doctors, patients’ families and others, they in turn take out their frustration on patients, says Sadaf Khan, a Senior Program Officer at PATH’s Maternal, Newborn, Child Health and Nutrition program. Sometimes it’s discrimination; other times constraints, slapping or abuse.
Recognizing this systemic problem, PRONTO and PATH work to elevate the status of care providers. PRONTO’s programs focus on the provider team as a whole and try to break down hierarchies that can interfere with quality care. Their training program gives birth attendants the chance to learn in lower risk environments, and simulations in which the provider plays the role of the mother help foster empathy. Other scenarios teach them not to lash out at patients and to ask for support when they need it.
Breeze-Harris recounts one birth simulation when the midwife called on a driver in the hall to help. It didn’t take long for the midwife to realize that she didn’t have to take care of 30 women on her own. Even if they weren’t technical hands, there were many ways to get hands there to help her.
“We help them find a way to manage what’s real for them,” Breeze-Harris says. “We meet them where they are, not where the algorithm says they should be.”
Famous for its innovative health technologies, PATH also works closely with providers to design and develop low-cost, effective, and easy-to-use devices according to the providers’ needs, wants and specifications. These include devices pre-filled with drugs that allow a single provider to administer the medication to multiple patients more quickly, or low-cost uterine balloon tamponades that help control hemorrhage.
But beyond just a safe and respectful delivery, global health experts are now promoting an even more holistic approach to maternal care. In 2016, the WHO released guidelines for a positive pregnancy experience to “ensure not only a healthy pregnancy for mother and baby, but also an effective transition to positive labor and childbirth and ultimately to a positive experience of motherhood.” The guidelines include recommendations on nutrition, malaria, HIV and even intimate partner violence.
Along those lines, PATH is working in communities through health education, preventative care, and a curriculum designed by mothers themselves to help women know their maternal rights and decide which procedures to undergo.
When women are empowered to speak up for themselves and providers are empowered to provide quality care, the outcomes can be dramatic. Positive experiences build trust, and word-of-mouth accounts can increase the number of women who seek care at facilities with skilled providers throughout their pregnancies – even their lifetimes. Of course, to achieve these outcomes, there must be continuous support with resources, training and accountability. But turning our focus to the wellbeing of mothers and those providing their care is the first step toward sustainable progress.
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The following Global Washington members are working to improve maternal and newborn health through a variety of interventions.
Adara’s work in maternal, newborn and child health is primarily focused on strengthening services in central Uganda by supporting holistic program development, and undertaking high impact interventions and training. Adara does this to enhance health services and contribute to ending the preventable deaths of women, children, adolescents, and in particular, newborns. Adara partners with Kiwoko Hospital to help women deliver their babies safely, help newborn babies needing specialized care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), provide community outreach services and health promotion, and train village health workers and clinicians from the local district health system. The Kiwoko Hospital NICU is considered a center of excellence in maternal and newborn health in East Africa.
Construction for Change believes maternal and child outcomes are inextricably tied to a community’s ability to access quality healthcare services. CfC seeks to increase access to healthcare by offering construction management expertise to organizations who need a new or improved building to increase their impact in the community. CfC’s healthcare initiative, the 30/30 Project, has specifically targeted maternal and child programs through the construction of four maternity wards and 18 rural health clinics around the world. These facilities have logged over 250,000 patient visits, including over 65,000 by children under 5 years old. The facilities also offer comprehensive prenatal care, with over 15,000 prenatal visits having taken place in the buildings over the past four years. Positive maternal and child outcomes have a reverberating effect throughout a community and access to a building where quality services can be obtained is central to CfC’s mission.
For 30+ years, HAI has worked to strengthen service delivery within, and expand access to, public sector MCH services. HAI considers the full system in which birth attendants operate and works to reduce barriers at each level. In Timor-Leste, HAI’s Liga Inan program has connected 47,000+ mothers nationwide to government midwives using mobile phone technology. Liga Inan empowers Timorese mothers to make informed decisions about their perinatal care in consultation with trained midwives. In Côte d’Ivoire, HAI has played a key role to integrate HIV, STI, and antenatal care services in 200+ health facilities, building birth attendant skills to provide specialized, comprehensive care to at-risk mothers and infants. In Mozambique, HAI is developing new ways for health providers and managers to use data to identify coverage gaps and implement localized, informed adaptations that respond to the specific needs of the families they serve.
In places where the needs are greatest — places of conflict and disaster — mothers and children are at even higher risk of disease and death. Medical Teams International provides prenatal check-ups, helps mothers give birth in clinics, and performs emergency C-sections to save the lives of mothers and babies. Once babies are born, the organization’s staff provide vaccines and treatments for pneumonia, malaria, and diarrhea. They also check for malnutrition and distribute supplemental food. Empowering women to keep their families healthy and safe is at the heart of what Medical Teams International does.
From Guatemala to Niger to Tajikistan, Mercy Corps has worked for years to combat child mortality through improving access to medical care and educational resources for new mothers. In Tajikistan, over 70% of the population lives in remote areas with limited access to medical care. In order to improve maternal and newborn health, Mercy Corps has trained over 1,200 local community members in over 600 communities to host community classes on pregnancy risks, childbirth and childhood nutrition. The classes have been attended by both new mothers and their mothers-in-law, as they hold significant influence over young women in most Tajikistan villages. Following the community trainings, mothers were 67% more likely to acknowledge danger signs during their pregnancy and visit their local health clinic. New mothers were also more likely to breastfeed exclusively, when prior to the trainings newborns and toddlers would have been given formula, sweet tea or biscuits crumbled in water.
Improving maternal, newborn, and child health is central to PATH’s mission and work around the world. PATH’s Maternal, Newborn, Child Health & Nutrition (MNCHN) program takes a health-systems oriented, multi-sector approach to strengthening the continuum of care for women, children, families, and communities. The MNCHN program provides core technical support and expertise to enable communities to survive and thrive by focusing on three broad, intersecting areas of work: strengthening maternal and newborn care; expanding nutrition policies, programs, and innovation; and integrating early childhood development into the broader MNCHN environment.
Since 2001, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands (PPGNHI) Global Programs has worked to improve access to sexual and reproductive health education and services in low resource settings, including family planning. Family planning is integral to maternal health; access to contraception has been associated with reductions in maternal mortality and can improve maternal and child health outcomes by delaying or spacing pregnancies. Recently, the PPGNHI Global Programs team partnered with the Módulo Anexo Materno Infantil (MAMI) in the Dominican Republic to improve maternal and child health and sexual and reproductive health outcomes through a digital support network for adolescent mothers, supported by funding from Grand Challenges Canada (through the Government of Canada). Through WhatsApp groups, they share educational messages and provide a forum with the aim of increased use of post-partum family planning, increased attendance at well-child and vaccination appointments, and increased social support measures.
The name “PRONTO” evokes a necessary urgency – birth attendants typically have fewer than five minutes to diagnose and deliver solutions to life-threatening emergencies affecting mothers and babies during childbirth. PRONTO International conducts simulation-based training designed for healthcare provider teams in limited-resource settings. PRONTO’s mission is to provide locally-owned, sustainable training that improves the capacity of frontline providers to save the lives of mothers and babies. More than 5,000 providers have been trained in ten countries, including nurses, traditional midwives, doctors and other providers who care for women and infants during labor and delivery. In addition, there are now more than 150 PRONTO trainers and PRONTO master trainers in Mexico, Guatemala, Kenya, Uganda, India, and the United States.
Working in 157 programmatic countries, UNICEF supports governments and communities in scaling up maternal, newborn, and child healthcare services. UNICEF provides vaccines to roughly 45% of the world’s children, and works with community healthcare workers to promote breastfeeding. In 2017, over 25 million live births were delivered in facilities supported by UNICEF, and $665 million was invested in nutrition programs, helping treat 4 million children for severe acute malnutrition in 67 countries. Since 2011, UNICEF and partners have helped eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus from an additional 26 countries through the Eliminate Project, averting an estimated 24,000 newborn deaths annually.
World Vision’s maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) programs work predominantly in the communities hardest hit by injustices, recognizing that the health of mothers and children cannot be separated, and that providing newborns with optimal nutrition and access to essential care promotes a basic human right. World Vision establishes community health committees, mother support groups, and “peer mothers” who help with breastfeeding and early infant nutrition. Through World Vision’s interventions, more than 220,000 community health workers have been trained and are now equipped to focus on prevention, providing key messages at the household level as well as essential care to new mothers and infants.
Worldwide Fistula Fund protects and restores the health and dignity of the world’s most vulnerable women by preventing and treating devastating childbirth injuries. The organization seeks to improve global women’s reproductive health and the safety of childbirth by improving the capacity of low-resource countries to meet women’s health care needs. WFF works to identify women who need fistula treatment and then provides life-changing surgeries, performed by expert fistula surgeons. Recovery and support includes post-op care, safe places to heal, meals, and integrated physical therapy. WFF supports advocacy and support groups through counseling and connecting survivors to local mentoring groups. Women are encouraged to participate in education and vocational skills training in literacy and health. WFF also funds training for community members in fistula awareness. In Ethiopia, WFF offers an enhanced OB-GYN residency training program and a specialized Urogynecology Fellowship training program.
For PATH, innovative tools depend on supportive systems for success
By Joanne Lu
Since its founding in 1977, PATH has become a giant in global health technology. With 1,600 employees working in 70 countries, PATH estimates that its innovations touch the lives of more than 150 million people each year. PATH works with a range of stakeholders and partners including, but not limited to, industry, governments, research institutions, and academia to address some of the world’s most pressing health problems, including those affecting mothers and newborns
About six years ago, the organization began to reevaluate how its work can transform entire systems. Instead of focusing strictly on technologies for individual projects, PATH has adopted a multidisciplinary “platform-based approach” that brings together the expertise of its teams across multiple countries and disciplines in order to research, design, scale up, and advocate for systemic innovations that make prevention and treatment more affordable, accessible and effective.
“Technologies are a very powerful piece of the armamentarium, but they’re just one piece,” says Sadaf Khan, a senior program officer with PATH’s Maternal, Newborn, Child Health & Nutrition Program.
Health workers in Ghana learn to use the blood collection drape to measure post-partum blood loss. Photo: PATH/Patience Cofie.
Khan, a physician originally from Pakistan, has spent the last eight years at PATH, primarily working on maternal health, but also on areas that intersect with her expertise, such as drug and device development and maternal immunization. She also looks at the potential of antenatal and postpartum care as platforms that can introduce women to a whole range of other health services for the rest of their and their children’s lives. These include nutrition, immunization, family planning and sexually transmitted infections, and malaria prevention and control.
“Everything PATH does in some way touches upon the lives of women and children,” Khan says.
And yet, Khan says they have found that their technology innovations achieve their transformative potential only when providers and patients in low- and middle-income country settings receive systems support they need.
“You can have these wonderful technologies, but if you have providers who are not trained in their use, or who are unsure of their ability to use them, there’s only so much good a tool can do by itself. Systems need to be built around the people who are providing those services, and they need to address the needs of the people – the women – who are receiving those services.”
Part of the solution is making sure that providers are being trained in up-to-date best practices and guidelines and that there’s a structure within which they can bring up issues that arise. But tools also need to be developed with the providers’ needs in mind.
For example, Khan notes that according to the World Health Organization, 99 percent of maternal deaths occur in low-resource settings, primarily in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. One of the most common causes of maternal death is postpartum hemorrhage. Severe postpartum hemorrhage can kill a mother in less than two hours. Oxytocin is the recommended drug of choice for preventing and treating it. Yet, according to Khan, it’s an underutilized intervention.
So, PATH asked, what are the barriers to the use of oxytocin for postpartum hemorrhage prevention? And how can it be used more widely? This issue was approached from a technology and systems lens. PATH’s technology solution was a simplified pre-filled device. That way, when there is only one birth attendant for several patients – as is often the case in low-resource settings – the birth attendant can administer it quickly. Additionally, the device is so simple that even health workers with fairly low levels of expertise can learn to use it quickly and easily.
Women in Uganda wait for their turn to see a provider at a health facility. Photo: PATH MediaBank
Second, PATH asked, what is the quality of the drug? Khan says they found in PATH’s work in Ghana and India, even when women were receiving oxytocin, the drug, especially when procured from private pharmacies, had very low levels of the active ingredient. Building an evidence base around quality and storage conditions has been key to addressing a systemic problem. This has included advocacy around procurement of quality oxytocin, as well as potential systems solutions, including exploring the integration of oxytocin into alternate cold chains, such as those for vaccines.
Third, PATH looked at the current practices, both from the provider perspective and from the community perspective. She says that while oxytocin may be underused for prevention, there’s often significant misuse to induce and augment labor, as providers respond to the demands of the patient’s family in certain settings. To address this challenge, PATH focused on training providers to optimize the drug’s appropriate use and to prevent misuse, as well as developing communication messages intended for families to minimize the misuse of the drug.
Armed with a bundle of evidence, PATH then approached policy makers in specific geographies to provide support and information for the development of a postpartum hemorrhage policy that addresses issues along the prevention-management continuum and looks at all the issues around providers’ skills, the availability of tools, and community demands. Working collaboratively with the policy makers, PATH aims to ensure that not only are changes made where needed but that all information is available to all providers.
PATH works closely with providers in developing tools that can improve care. For example, in cases where hemorrhaging is not managed by first line treatments, traditionally manual pressure is applied to stop the bleeding. But again, given workflows and patient load, manual pressure is not always a viable option.
For bleeding that is non-responsive to initial treatments or where these may be unavailable, the use of uterine balloon tamponades (UBT) can prove lifesaving, reducing blood loss and the need for risky and costly surgical interventions and blood transfusions. The UBTs available to providers in a developed country setting are effective but often too expensive for low resource settings. In these settings, it was observed that providers were rigging up their own UBTs with available items, such as catheters, condoms, and syringes. While certainly an ingenious solution, these approaches take time to assemble.
A prototype of the Sinapi uterine balloon tamponade (UBT) inflated with water. Photo credit: PATH/Patrick McKern.
Taking these needs into consideration, PATH has worked with providers, developers and researchers to develop an inexpensive all-in-one, pre-assembled UBT with all the design features that the providers themselves wanted. It’s a fully assembled system that can begin working in less than one minute, and the estimated cost is a fraction of the cost of UBTs used in the U.S. PATH estimates that an affordable UBT could save up to 6,500 lives annually and avert almost 11,000 surgeries just in sub-Saharan Africa alone. The Innovation Countdown 2030 report estimates that widespread use of the UBT could save the lives of 169,000 women by 2030.
Empowering providers with the appropriate tools, trainings and support makes a monumental difference in the care that is delivered. As one provider told Khan, “It’s very frustrating to me to not know whether the skill set that I have is even up-to-date. Now I feel full confidence in my ability to deliver these services. I feel empowered, and I feel my attitude and my interactions with my patients have improved and changed for the better.” The quality of care from a confident and well-equipped provider also shapes women’s perceptions of care. It can affect whether a woman will continue to seek care for herself, as well as how and when she will take her children to a health care provider and whether she will encourage others in her community to do the same.
That’s why Khan says PATH is focused on moving forward with not just providers’ needs in mind, but with a women-centric approach.
“Much of the new global guidance coming out is recognizing that we need to move beyond thinking only vis-a-vis health outcomes – which are undoubtedly critical – to the experience of pregnancy and childbirth as a positive experience that is empowering for women.”
Through its work with communities, PATH is integrating ways to keep women informed as partners in the process of tackling maternal mortality.
A community-led behavior change strategy in India uses digital video technology. Photo: PATH/Kiersten Israel-Ballard.
“There is an understanding that even if a woman receives services that are technically sound but she leaves with an overall negative experience of her childbirth experience due to lack of other dimensions of quality, we as providers have failed that woman,” says Khan. “For me, addressing these is the next step to accelerating progress.”
Heidi Breeze-Harris, executive director of PRONTO International
By Angelia Miranda
For Heidi Breeze-Harris, working in the global health sector may not have been an obvious path, but in retrospect, it makes sense. Thanks to the trips that she and her mother saved up for every summer, and growing up with a diverse extended family, Breeze-Harris has always had a strong connection to the international sector. “Because I started traveling to pretty out of the way places when I was young, I was comfortable in those settings,” she says.
But what she saw within those settings didn’t always make sense.
One of the greatest influences in her life, her grandfather, instilled in her a lesson as a child. “He taught me that there is nobody lesser than me, and nobody better. We are all the same level of human.” Breeze-Harris internalized his words, but the inequality and injustice she saw during her travels made her wonder how they could be true when reality looked so different.
“My grandfather instilled this belief and then I went into the world.” As a 5-year-old child in Lima, she recalls asking herself, “How do I get to eat breakfast and these other children my age don’t. Why can’t they have what I have? And is it wrong that I do?”
Upon finishing college with a degree in anthropology and Asian studies, Breeze-Harris considered looking for international work. “I also loved, and love art and I thought what better time to experiment with work in the arts than when I am young and have little to lose.” A conceptual artist, she has embraced music, acting, sculpting, photography, and painting. In fact, her first job was with local glass sculptor and artist, Dale Chihuly. “I started as a receptionist with Dale and worked my way up,” she says.
With long hours and dedication, within six months Breeze-Harris became Chihuly’s book designer and museum liaison, and she worked with the installation design teams in the studio. After six years, she shifted her focus from art to urban design in service to community development.
After working as an urban designer for low-income communities, Breeze-Harris received a fellowship in 2003 to work with immigrant communities in Kobe, Japan, who had been displaced and disenfranchised after the Hanshin Awaji earthquake. It was after returning from Japan that she first heard about the medical condition, fistula.
Obstetric fistula is a childbirth injury caused most often by women experiencing obstructed labor without access to timely medical care. In obstructed labor the baby’s head puts pressure on the mother’s birth canal, which if left unrelieved can result in a stillborn baby and the mother with a hole in her bladder or rectum. An estimated 2 million women worldwide suffer from fistula. Because women with fistula can leak urine and and/or feces chronically, they often face ostracism, isolation, shame, and a heightened risk of death.
Breeze-Harris was herself one month pregnant when she began learning about fistula. It went from being a topic completely unknown to her to suddenly showing up in her life three times in one week. “I think that’s a sign that something’s worth paying attention to,” she said. And so she did.
Together with her friend, Katya Matanovic, she co-founded the organization, One By One, to work with women in East Africa and implement a holistic approach to fistula treatment and prevention. She learned more about fistula and its impact on girls and women in low-income countries. In an ironic twist, her own pregnancy took a turn for the worse, and Breeze-Harris almost died from obstructed labor.
“Because I lived in the U.S.,” she explained, “I was able to have a cesarean section in time.” Once again, the questions raised by her grandfather’s lessons seemed to apply; only this time the difference between her and others like her was access to life-saving resources.
Breeze-Harris never intended to start an organization like One By One. As a new mother, she fully expected to hand the project off to the UN Foundation. “I had my own child,” she points out. But the UN Foundation gave One By One a startup grant and encouraged them to keep going.
After 11 years, she left One By One, in need of a chance to recharge. But the work she started continued on. In 2018, she watched with pride as One By One merged with the Worldwide Fistula Fund, a Global Washington member. “I am so thrilled the work continues. That’s what’s happening, and it is happening in an even bigger and better way than either organization would have been able to do alone.”
On the flipside, the team One By One helped to build in Kenya now operates and functions as its own NGO. “The leadership is theirs,” she affirmed. Looking back at all that One By One has accomplished since she left, she says, “To say I’m proud is a weird way to put it—I’m humbled that I was able to connect and work alongside incredible leaders who made all of this happen. This work is led by fistula survivors there. That is how it should be.”
Heidi Breeze-Harris (center) in Migori County, Kenya, with midwives who have just undergone a week of PRONTO training and are receiving their certificates of completion. Photo provided by PRONTO International.
Breeze-Harris continues her work in global and maternal health as the current executive director of PRONTO International, an organization that provides innovative low-cost obstetric training to clinical providers in resource-limited settings around the world.
The philosophy that PRONTO International embodies is the idea that clinicians are not separate from mothers and babies—rather, they are an essential part of the childbirth process and the “mother-baby-provider” triad. As such, the organization focuses on offering clinical providers the emotional, psychological, and technical support they need not only for the safety of mothers and children, but also for their own well-being, because confident providers save lives.
When asked about her confidence in the global community’s ability to accomplish the Sustainable Development Goals relating to global health by 2030, she expressed a general sense of optimism. At the same time, she cautioned that the global community must not forget all those encompassed by the term “global.” For instance, the United States is the only developed nation where rates of maternal death are increasing, especially in populations of women of color.
“It is important that we highlight the relationship between our healthcare system, racism and pregnancy outcomes,” she said.
While PRONTO International works in low-resource areas across the globe, it also sells birth simulation kits to American providers and universities. PRONTOPacks™ allow clinicians in any setting to simulate birth in a highly realistic and innovative, yet sustainable, low-tech and low-cost manner.
In pursuing innovative ways to train birth attendants, from offering PRONTOPacks™ to developing curriculum and training plans in collaboration with local governments, PRONTO International aims to develop practitioner skills in-country, while ultimately placing the responsibility of continuing the programs with the countries themselves. “Our goal has to be to make it sustainable within country budgets and staffing systems.”
Tracing a path from the office of an artist to the forefront of innovative organizations in global health and maternal care was certainly never the plan. But if there is one thing Breeze-Harris illustrates, it is following her passion wherever it may lead.
Today, Heidi Breeze-Harris brings her creativity to the role of changing the very inequality and injustice that she witnessed in the world as a child. By ensuring that future mothers can get what they need, regardless of where or who they are, she helps to make her grandfather’s words a reality: nobody less, and nobody better.
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
One Equal Heart Foundation
One Equal Heart is a Seattle-based nonprofit that collaborates with indigenous leaders to honor and nurture sustainable agriculture, equitable communities and traditional knowledge. oneequalheart.org
SG Foundation
SG Foundation trustees and staff collectively strive to serve God and the poor by relieving suffering and improving the quality of life in communities and for the individuals in those communities both locally and around the world. sgfoundation.org
YWCA SEATTLE | KING | SNOHOMISH
YWCA is on a mission to eliminate racism and empower women. ywcaworks.org
As a 2019 GiveBIG marketing partner, Global Washington is thrilled to highlight our non-profit members that are participating in this year’s one-day online fundraising event. All of our members have a strong presence in Washington state and are working to improve lives in developing countries. Please consider supporting their work (and ours!) by making a donation today.
Stamford, Conn. – May 3, 2019 – Americares India is preparing to deliver medicine and relief supplies to assist survivors of India’s worst cyclone in decades.
Cyclone Fani made landfall in Odisha Friday morning local time with wind gusts over 120 mph—the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane. More than 1 million people evacuated India’s east coast as the storm approached, taking refuge from the heavy rains and punishing winds in more than 800 emergency shelters.
Americares is planning to deliver medicine and relief supplies to Odisha this weekend, including tarps, water cans and water purification tablets for up to 3,000 families. Americares India, based in Mumbai, also has medical teams on stand-by, ready to provide primary care services and treatment for minor injuries. Continue Reading
For Heidi Breeze-Harris, working in the global health sector may not have been an obvious path, but in retrospect, it makes sense. Thanks to the trips that she and her mother saved up for every summer, and growing up with a diverse extended family, Breeze-Harris has always had a strong connection to the international sector. “Because I started traveling to pretty out of the way places when I was young, I was comfortable in those settings,” she says.
Americares is planning to deliver medicine and relief supplies to Odisha this weekend, including tarps, water cans and water purification tablets for up to 3,000 families. Americares India, based in Mumbai, also has medical teams on stand-by, ready to provide primary care services and treatment for minor injuries.