You're Saving Lives

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month around the globe. Our HIO Nepal team is actively meeting this challenge.

---

Dear Friends,

Did you know that cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths for women in Nepal? According to the World Health Organization, it’s the fourth most common type of cancer worldwide. Sadly, more than 90% of cervical cancer cases occur in marginalized developing countries. A lack of awareness and screening programs, as well as the high cost of the vaccine for poor people, lead to this alarming global inequity.

HIO was first inspired two years ago to become part of a global movement to eliminate cervical cancer. At the time, we were helping an HIO girl’s mother living in a remote mountain village manage follow-up care after precancerous cells were detected in a cervical screening. Dr. Josh Jaffe, our trusted OB-GYN consultant in the Berkshires, provided us with excellent advice for her case. He told us that almost all cervical cancers are caused by the common human papillomavirus (HPV). Unlike other forms of cancer, it is completely preventable through vaccination. The HPV vaccine, approved for U.S. distribution in 2006, has shown an almost 90% reduction in cervical cancer in girls and young women who have received it. Cervical cancer is easily treatable when detected early.​

Raising awareness about the causes and risks of cervical cancer helps our HIO community be part of the solution.

Working toward the successful outcome of this woman’s case prompted us to want to do more. We knew that applying HIO’s unique, grass-roots approach to social work could help alleviate this global health problem, starting with our own community. Dr. Jaffe generously serves as the lead advisor for HIO’s cervical cancer prevention initiative. We aim to raise awareness about the disease, administer the HPV vaccine to 200 HIO girls and young women up to age 24, and conduct HPV DNA screenings for their mothers and our HIO staff members, ages 25-60.

With many thanks to the Comeau Family for funding the project, our Nepal social service team is moving forward with these big plans. Last week, they brilliantly coordinated the first round of HPV DNA screenings with our new healthcare partner, the Nepal Fertility Care Center (NFCC). Offering the screening at our Chandra Kala Learning Center’s family-like environment helped each participant feel more at ease with this sensitive process. After an orientation and awareness session conducted by NFCC’s healthcare professionals, 81 women were given personalized instructions for collecting a sample for analysis.

Our Nepal team is coordinating with another new healthcare partner, EkEk Paila, for follow-up care for women who are determined to be HPV positive. In addition to offering low-cost medical and dental services to our entire HIO community, EkEk Paila is organizing our HPV vaccine clinic. A simple 2-dose HPV vaccine regimen, the key to preventing cervical cancer, will be given to girls age 9-14. Those who are age 14-26 will receive the recommended three doses. We are grateful to now have EkEk Paila and NFCC as valued resources and as inspiration for our young HIO women interested in healthcare.

Access to education is the most effective way to encourage marginalized girls and their mothers to find a realistic path from abject poverty to a life with a measure of financial well-being and stability. Each success for one of our girls or mothers is a hard won struggle and a team effort. With a chorus of wellness interventions structured by HIO, our girls and their mothers are far more able to cope with an array of illnesses that commonly befall the poor. When a poor mother gets sick or dies, her family sinks deeper into hardship, perpetuating a cycle of poverty our educational interventions aim to break.

Promoting the overall health and well-being of our HIO community is a number one priority of our social service program. Through our Nepal team’s initiative and your caring support, we’re making wonderful gains. Your kindness is encouraging improved health and self-reliance for our girls and their mothers. Together, we’re saving lives. We couldn't do this great work without you.​

With deep gratitude — Ricky, Laura and the HIO Nepal team

---

Conditions of poverty severely limit HIO families’ access to preventive healthcare, causing them to suffer in silence. Our Program Manager, Sushila Chaurel, is a superb social worker whose networking skills encourage our mothers to receive health services that are their basic human right.