About the Project

The Nepal Sexual and Reproductive Health Project is a global health  initiative (GHI) with a focus on public health, advocacy, and health education in rural communities in Nepal. At this time, we are specifically working with the indigenous Tharu population in the Dang district. These communities have historically faced significant barriers in accessing healthcare due to cultural, geographic, and social barriers. This project aims to empower youth and improve the overall health of adolescents in these Tharu communities in rural Nepal by increasing knowledge and access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Global health work approaches health disparities from education, resource, and policy perspectives, in an attempt to achieve equitable access and opportunity. Particular attention is given to communities and countries that have a history of limited resources, and face barriers in resolving these issues. To do this, the UBC GHI has worked hard to foster collaborative partnerships within the communities it serves in order to address their needs. In doing so, we can ensure the goals we prioritize are reflective of the community needs, and not based on assumptions we make from an outside perspective. Creating Possibilities (CP) Nepal, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children, youth, and women in Nepal, is one of such partnerships, and our primary partner in Nepal. Involvement with CP began seven years ago when UBC medical students initiated a project addressing the high burden of sickle cell disease (SCD) in the Dang region of Nepal. This partnership with CP facilitated an improvement in SCD awareness and screening in this region. After establishing a foundation of trust,
and our dedication to effecting positive change, CP approached us with another project idea. They explained that this same community we’d been working with demonstrated large knowledge gaps in sexual and reproductive health, and put this forward as a new area of focus.

The Nepal Sexual and Reproductive Health Project is one of several initiatives led by the UBC GHI program at the UBC Faculty of Medicine. UBC GHI strives to enhance the education of BC’s future doctors by offering opportunities to participate in valuable global health work, wherein students may develop skills to meaningfully enhance health outcomes and quality of life around the world. While these projects have a global focus, the experience of working with variable populations in resource-poor regions directly translates to how we approach care in our diverse local communities, especially those in rural and remote areas.