Updates from our team

1. Maternal, Adolescents, and Young Child Nutrition and WASH study and Action Research (Indonesia)

Following up on emerging topics and issues highlighted during the exploratory research phase last November, in February our team undertook structured research in the same four communities. We combined several participatory approaches and tools, including:

Participatory Focus Group Discussions (pFGDs) with Moms, Fathers, Older Women, Health Service Providers, and Cadres 

This is one of the examples an exercise during a pFGD with Health Service Providers where we talked about the process during Posyandu, each person’s role and understanding the ‘chain of command’ and sources of information

---

pFGDs with fathers in one of study locations to understand the sources of information they trust

The picture shows one of the pFGD sessions with moms in WJ. Here moms are sharing about the roles that they take on as part of parenting

Hanging out with teen girls and boys

During this informal hangout, we chatted with teen girls about their dreams and aspirations, nutrition, also sexual and reproductive health issues. To keep the activities more interesting and informal, we hung out in areas where they usually like to meet and chatted with them first to make sure they felt comfortable and relaxed. We also then used visuals as part of our conversations.

As well as extensive observation relating to data management for Posyandu and Puskesmas

During this phase, we also wanted to explore and better understand how the Posyandu collects, records, and manages the data of the Posyandu participants relating to health and their development.

These deep, detailed, and contextual insights on specific issues will also be used to help plan for the upcoming Human Centered Design (HCD) workshops that will be conducted at the community level in Late March/early April. The HCD process will include brainstorming and prototyping solutions to address challenges identified by community members themselves both from the immersion and structured research phases.

---

2. Bangladesh New Study and New Researcher Training!

We’re excited that our long history of work in Bangladesh will continue this year with a new study on Child Labour. As part of preparing for this study, in mid-February two members of our core team trained a new batch of local Bangladeshi researchers in the RCA Level 1 training, which includes three days of classroom training along with a two-night pilot immersion. Our team was assisted by some of the Bangladeshi researchers that we have worked with for previous studies (some of whom we’ve worked with for over five years now!) who we’re lucky to have back joining this study as well. The main study fieldwork will take place from early to mid-March.

See our 2019 year in review!