From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 5:03 PM
To: Jaime-Alexis Fowler
Subject: Re: FW: Pathfinder on CNN today!

Congrats on that. Been extraordinarily busy, but I plan to do a lot of posts next month for True/Slant and HuffPo, and will do a piece on Pathfinders around the 2nd or 3rd of May (unless there's some other date that might be better for you guys for some reason). 

Got a couple of quick questions for you for the article; will follow up with more specific ones later:

1.      Briefly, why is Pathfinders important at this particular moment in history?

Right now more than half the world’s population is under the age of 25. That’s 3 billion people, the largest generation of young people in history—and they’re all entering their reproductive years. Their sexual and reproductive health needs are largely going unmet (roughly half of all new HIV infections are among young people, the leading cause of death among 15-19 yr. old women in developing world is complications from pregnancy or childbirth). The world's failure to recognize the importance of reproductive health, especially for young girls, is forfeiting the futures of our young people and may bankrupt countries all around the world. But we have an opportunity to make a change. Adolescence presents a crucial window to influence healthy life-long behaviors that can enable young people to transform their lives & their communities. Prioritizing reproductive rights & health services can help individuals create opportunity and also help resolve a myriad of social and economic problems for communities and countries. If we can increase contraceptive usage and encourage changes in traditional practices like early marriage, we can change the future of our planet.

2. What specifically does the group do on the ground in those nations where you operate? What sort of services can women receive?

We do a lot…hard to capture all here…but brief overview…we work in about 25 countries—predominantly in Asia and Africa—providing technical training for our local partners and service providers (ie, IUD insertion trainings, emergency obstetric care training, etc), building community awareness about health services, instigating community outreach/education programs, advocating with local governments to invest in reproductive health/family planning as well as provide a range of services including HIV prevention, treatment, and care, contraceptive information and services, prenatal/maternal services, safe abortion/postabortion care, etc.

3. How much of your effort involves raising awareness, and how much involves providing goods and services?

It’s really both. You can’t have one without the other. Most women and families around the world are aware that there are ways to plan their families/make decisions about their bodies, but often they either don’t have access to those services, or don’t have the full range of information. I believe the recent stat is that about 200 million women want, but lack access to contraceptives. I find that pretty unbelievable considering I can walk to a CVS and obtain just about whatever I need. So we focus on both ensuring the goods and services are available and promoting awareness about them. If for instance, you do a ton of community outreach promoting the goods/services and a woman goes to the clinic only to discover it’s out of stock, or the nurse has left for the day, she’s going to go home and tell her community about her bad experience—and then other people will be disinclined to go. If she goes into the clinic and has a great experience, she’s then going to share that with her friends and more women will go in…

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Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302