Challenges in conducting rural

research

• Baseline survey to assess the state of sexual and reproductive health rights among rural women living with HIV

• Why?

• To inform the development of subsequent interventions.

Community Based Participatory Action Research

Participatory Action Research

Community Based Research

In a nutshell:

•Women knew their rights but could not exercise them:• Lack of economic autonomy• Institutions for redress were non-existent, too far, discriminatory or not

helpful

•Health care workers were a major source of discrimination and active in denying reproductive health services to the women.

•Rejection of my report•Pre-mediated interventions

•Rejected again!•Casting aside my principles

•Donors decide the priorities, not the communities•Being “off-topic”

•Presenting our “evidence-based” intervention at stakeholder meetings

•NONE of the beneficiaries, the women living with HIV, were present at the stakeholder and planning meetings for a project that was meant to “empower” them

•Obsession with quantitative gains over actual quality of results•Report writing >>> Actual work in the community

Re-creating society’s hierarchies within the project

• Where development workers had their training • Development workers were given extra money to be there

Where the HCW had their training

This is where the peer educators, people living with HIV, had their training

•Quitting development and working at Starbucks•Moving beyond development bashing