Hesperian Weblog

What’s changed? New software plug-in aids publishing work and Hesperian’s updates

Usually when a publisher reprints a book, they just send an order to the printing plant that they need another several thousand books, and the printer simply reuses the same files (or plates) to produce the additional copies. But not Hesperian.

Since thousands of people in over 200 countries rely on Where There Is No Doctor and other Hesperian publications to diagnose, treat, and prevent common illnesses, it is crucial to keep the information in our materials as up-to-date as possible. Every printing reflects evolving medical knowledge, changes in availability and effectiveness of medicines, World Health Organization recommendations, and more. Dozens of changes are made with every printing, and now, also between “printings” on the internet.

  While researching and implementing those changes is a lot of work, the challenge becomes even greater when you consider the need to communicate these medical changes to the thousands of users of the books and the partner organizations that translate, publish, and distribute them in 88 languages – organizations that also need to keep their editions up-to-date.

Like many publishers, Hesperian uses Adobe InDesign to create our books, but the program has no useful way to track and record changes. For years, we have tried to work around this shortcoming, manually marking up changed pages to photocopy or PDF and share with translation partners and others – a time consuming process with less than optimal results.

At last an efficient technological solution has appeared – from a small company called CtrlPublishing based in Sweden. CtrlPublishing has developed a “plug-in” (add-on) for Adobe InDesign and InCopy that allows for tracking of changes from multiple editors and designers. The plug-in, called CtrlChanges, clearly tracks and marks additions and deletions to text, is user-friendly and intuitive, and enables the creation of annotated PDFs with complete records of changes. This will enable our colleagues in Cambodia, for instance, to easily see what was added and deleted in our new edition so they can evaluate whether they want to translate and incorporate those same changes into their new Khmer printing.

  We visited CtrlPublishing’s website and tested a free trial of the plug-in, then wrote to the company to learn more. We were incredibly grateful when CtrlPublishing offered to donate the software to our always financially struggling non-profit!

We have now been experimenting with and using the CtrlChanges Pro plug-in for 4 months, while updating materials on midwifery, community dentistry, and environmental health. During this short time, we have been able to simplify and streamline our internal editorial processes and improve our ability to communicate critical medical updates to partners.

This summer, Hesperian’s flagship resource, Where There Is No Doctor, will be updated for the 26th time since its original publication in Spanish in the 1970s. HIV treatment recommendations, medicines for tuberculosis, and many other topics will be reviewed by Hesperian staff and trusted medical advisors working all over the world. But this time, we know that the process will be smoother and we will be able to share these lifesaving updates more quickly and efficiently in 88 languages with the people who need them most.

Khmer edition of A Community Guide to Environmental Health released in Cambodia

In April 2006 Dr. David Narita, working with OMF in Cambodia, emailed Hesperian and asked for permission to translate and update the Khmer edition of Where There Is No Doctor. The only copies available in Khmer, he wrote, were printed in an old font that many people could no longer decipher, had been photocopied and re-bound so many times that even new copies were mostly illegible, and contained out of date medical information. In 2009, he printed a full translation of the 9th edition of Doctor.

Around the same time, Hesperian was looking for groups to begin translations of our newest book, A Community Guide to Environmental Health – Dr. Narita didn’t feel he could take the project on directly, but recommended one of his partners from the work on Where There is No Doctor, Mao Boran. Mr. Boran recruited two partners, a medical translator and an illustrator, and together with support from Dr. Narita they worked tirelessly to translate Environmental Health into Khmer, and to adapt 179 illustrations for a Cambodian setting. Throughout the process, they ensured that the page layout and numbers matched the English edition, so that Khmer and English speakers can work together using the two books.

Both books are now available in Khmer at three bookstores in Cambodia – Angkor Thom Bookstore, International Bookstore, and Peace Book Center – and can be purchased together for a reduced price. In addition, OMF is using both books as a part of their community health education and health evangelism work. Cambodia faces an array of obstacles to achieving health for all; 34% of the population lives on less than one dollar per day, and just under half of all Cambodia children under five are malnourished.

Mao writes, ‘I'm really proud to be part of the project, and always feel good when I got home and see the book. I expect to have more opportunity to expand my knowledge from translation, as well as to bring benefit to Cambodian people. What is most important is that I am really grateful for Hesperian to have brought books to Cambodia.’ Mao completed the translation just in time for his recent marriage, and we wish him the best in both ventures!

You can see a full list of Khmer translations of Hesperian titles here. 

Mongolian Edition of A Community Guide to Environmental Health

The Mongolian edition of A Community Guide to Environmental Health was among the top 20 bookstore bestsellers in April and May! This thrilling news is due to the work of Hesperian translation partner Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, director of the Mongolia NGO Local Solutions which produced their edition of A Community Guide to Environmental Health in April of 2010.

The book has been a huge success outside of bookstores as well. Three government ministries (Health, Environment and Education) are distributing 400-450 books each from through their offices in the local soums (counties) of Mongolia. Journalists have published at least 5 interesting and engaging articles directly related to the book in newspapers and magazines. Mongolian National Television have produced and broadcasted "environmental health" spots to coincide with the book release and Oyungerel has been hard at work encouraging other media to publicize the book and its contents. Recently, a Mongolian health blogger offered to publish the book chapter by chapter on his blog! Also, some journalists are initiating a series of articles calling upon Mongolians to utilize the information in our book to transform local communities.

During the development of this edition, Local Solutions discussed with Hesperian the necessity to add a chapter on geothermal heating to their edition. Poor air quality during the long and hard Mongolian winters is a huge health issue there. As they were compiling the information for the chapter, the test building with the first geothermal heating system was not providing the hoped-for results, and the engineers were worried that geothermal might not prove sufficient to overcome the cold Mongolian winter. As it turned out, by the time the book was sent to the printer, they learned that geothermal heating worked in a completely unexpected place – an old kindergarten building which contained more insulation than the test building. While timing did not permit Local Solutions to include that story in their edition, they recently wrote us:

”After publishing the Community Guide for Environmental Health, we were so encouraged to see that Mongolian public is VERY enthusiastic about learning everything to make their lifestyle greener. Unfortunately, our winter is the biggest enemy of our environment – just imagine – one village burns 18,000 tons of wood in one winter. So, we are starting to work on the second book with your style of simple language and drawings.”

Local Solutions fundraised enough to bring 4 consultants from JUCCCE (Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy), an environmental NGO and a network of eco-friendly specialists and engineers, to Huvsgul province. Combined with work they were already carrying out in the capitol Ulaanbaatar and Selenge province, Oyuna reports “I am expecting extensive recommendations from JUCCCE team on how to green Mongolia's harsh winter. They will advise on how to improve building codes, insulation, heating systems, sealing practices, alternative fuels etc. Following their advice, Local Solutions is planning to compile a book "How to Make Winters Green" that will be for the general public. We are visualizing that it is going to be at least 500 pages explaining engineering stuff with simple illustrations and simple language.”

Misereor, the agency that helped fund the printing of the book, will be meeting with Local Solutions to discuss how to undertake some of the projects described in the book. It should be a fascinating and productive discussion.

We are looking forward to a Bay area visit from Local Solutions in August to hear more about their work and how they use the Community Guide as an organizing tool. If you are in the Bay Area and would like to be notified about (invited to!) a brown bag lunch talk at our office, let us know by writing to tawnia@hesperian.org.  

Health resources in solidarity with Haiti

By Sarah Shannon

The day after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Hesperian worked quickly to upload digital copies of Kote ki pa gen dokte (Where There Is No Doctor in Kreyòl), Kote Fanm Pa Jwenn Dokte (Where Women Have No Doctor in Kreyòl), and other health materials in Hatian Kreyòl, French, Spanish, and English to our website. Through email, twitter, and every other medium we could think of, we spread the word that these materials were available for free download to our international network of grassroots community health workers and nonprofit organizations. News of accessible materials available in Kreyòl, a language in which there is a significant lack of appropriate health resources, "went viral," generating an overwhelming response from a wide variety of health activists. We heard from other solidarity organizations, those collecting funds and materials for Haiti as well as those already working amidst the devastation to provide medical support. We were also gratified to learn that the materials were being further distributed by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control, and other large relief organizations, as well as by many individual volunteers.

As countless doctors and nurses from the United States and around the world travel to Haiti to provide medical aid, we hope these materials will prove to be a valuable resource for the Haitian people while improving communication between Haitians and foreign medical workers. In the first week they were posted, the Kreyòl materials were downloaded over 30,000 times. Responses poured in from around the world, and along with thanks, the stories we heard about the realities volunteers were witnessing made us wish we could do more.

Shortly after those materials were uploaded, Hesperian was invited to support another major project to help these volunteers communicate with the people they have traveled to support. On January 25th, we received a call from Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC), a partner nonprofit organization that had created a Spanish-French- Kreyòl glossary of commonly used medical terms for Cuban doctors working in Haiti. While Kreyòl is the national language of Haiti, many health workers there have been trained in Spanish by Cubans, and clinical records are kept in French, while many of the volunteers responding to the recent earthquake speak only English. MEDICC was interested to know if Hesperian could add an English translation to their 4000+ word trilingual glossary, making it quadra-lingual.

Hesperian staff and volunteers immediately set to work transforming MEDICC’s original glossary into an editable “wiki” format and sent out email alerts recruiting volunteers – professional translators, doctors, and fluent English/Spanish speakers. Twenty-eight volunteers from Berkeley to Germany worked around the clock to meet a 30-hour deadline translating from Spanish to English. Their work was then reviewed by a team of medical translators and again by Haitian medical doctors to ensure the Kreyòl matched the English. The terms in Spanish alone beginning with the letter “A” comprised 777 words, and more than 80 volunteers participated in this week-long intensive project of solidarity with the people of Haiti.

Hesperian has posted this collaboration with MEDICC, titled Health for All: A Kreyòl -Spanish-French-English Glossary on our new Haitian Kreyòl Health Information site at http://creole.hesperian.net/. The glossary is available to be searched using any of the languages as a starting point, whether by a Haitian health worker who speaks only Kreyòl, or an American volunteer who speaks only English. The site includes other health materials in Haitian Kreyòl, as well as a forum for sharing health materials created or adapted for use in Haiti so other health workers can use them as well.

These resources – books, the glossary, and more – will help individuals and organizations to save lives and support communities across Haiti. The Haitian Kreyòl Health Information site is a communal effort of solidarity. It is also very much a work in progress, and we invite contributions and feedback from all who use it.

We hope that these materials, synthesizing the experience of health workers around the world who struggle against inequality, poverty and disease, will serve the people in Haiti as they build new lives amidst the destruction of the earthquake. We believe that it is crucial to support Haitian efforts to lead the recovery process, and that one important role we can play is to help build capacity that will allow Haitians to rebuild their own country. Hesperian’s Haitian Kreyòl Health Information site is an initial effort in solidarity with the struggle for health and justice in Haiti.

Afghan publisher reconnects after 15 years

For over 15 years, Dr. Hamidullah Saljuqi and Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (CHA) have used Hesperian materials in their development work in Afghanistan. However, we were unaware of this work until recently when Dr. Saljuqi contacted us and informed us that CHA had translated Where Women Have No Doctor and A Book for Midwives into Dari over 10 years ago to use in their health programs. We were very excited to learn about the work of CHA, and to “discover” a  partner that is acknowledged as one of the most relevant organizations for humanitarian assistance and social development in Afghanistan. 

CHA was created in 1987 by a team of educated and experienced Afghan volunteers with the goal of raising community awareness of social justice issues. Over the past two decades CHA has expanded to play an important role in providing emergency assistance and delivering basic services in health, agriculture, education and infrastructure rehabilitation in Afghanistan. CHA began its health activities with training first aid workers to provide rescue services for war victims. Their health activities grew to providing vaccines and maternal and child health services in underserved areas.

We asked Dr. Hamidullah Saljuqi, Director of CHA, how they have used Hesperian health materials in their work, and he sent us the following letter.

“Where There is No Doctor” was the valuable book introduced to me and our team with Hesperian Foundation’s publications in 1996- 1997 when we started to design training program for Village Health Volunteers (VHVs) and School Health Volunteers (SHVs). As a good and relevant resource it fulfilled our requirements for designing curriculum for VHVs. In 2003-2004 CHA started training of Community Midwives in Farah province- Afghanistan for promoting skilled birth attendances as part of newly designed national health strategy. 

In 1999, I got two new books from Hesperian Foundation publications through a partner organization working in Afghanistan called (EO/CA = Ecumenical office/Christian Aid). I found it very interesting with very easy and demonstrative ways for understanding how to save motherhood and newborn and how to address the women problems which were very critical in Afghanistan. CHA had started working with it training Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) and family planning services. Wow; these two books were the ones we were looking for.  Soon after we started reading it and went on to translate part of it into Dari (our national language).  These two books were “A Book for Midwives” and “Where Women Have No Doctor”. 

“A Book for Midwives” was the 1st book translated by CHA in 1999, followed by translation of “Where Women Have No Doctor” in 2000.

The destructive effects of longstanding conflict in Afghanistan was not only tangible on the economy, basic infrastructures, government administration, health, education, agriculture and other vital aspects of life for Afghan communities, but also on human and technical resources and capacities. All these effects worsened by appearance of Taliban regime which made impossible for female staff to work and even pictures were prohibited.

 It was more risky to work on translation and printing of these books during Taliban time inside Afghanistan and this is why we shifted our working place to Peshawar- Pakistan for completion of the translation and printing of the books.

It was a new beginning for CHA’s health sector; we established our Health Technical Support Unit and continued with developing health resources and education materials as well as conducting training for health related staff and community health volunteers.

The following books, manuals and teaching aid materials are translated, developed and printed by CHA:  

- “A Book for Midwives” translated in Dari. 
- “Where Women Have No Doctor translated” in to Dari.
- “Guidelines for Rational Use of Drugs” translated in Dari.
- “Contraceptive – Your Questions Answered” translated in Dari.
- “The Pills and Other Hormonal Contraceptives” translated in Dari.
- “Life Saving Skill for Midwives” translated in Dari.
- “Guidelines for Health centers management” prepared by CHA.
- “Guidelines for Village Health Volunteers (VHVs) and TBAs developed by CHA.
- “Manual of Trainers Guides” developed and adapted by CHA.
- “Manual for clinic nurses” developed and adapted by CHA.
- “Manual for clinic midwives” developed and adapted by CHA.
- “Manual of Family planning for health facilities staff” developed and adapted by CHA.
- “Supervision and Staff support” developed by CHA.
- “Drug Stock Management” translated by CHA.
- “Essentials of Delivery” translated and adapted by CHA.
- “Health Education Guide for health staff” prepared by CHA.
- Eight kinds of different fillip charts.
- Six kinds of different posters.
- Different protocols mainly on reproductive health.

Fortunately in December 2008, I visited the Hesperian website and started contacting the Hesperian team directly which happily got encouraging response from Ms. Tawnia Litwin. The new books from Hesperian introduced to me and we received copies of the new books.

“A Community Guide to Environmental Health” is currently being translated by CHA team to Dari language. CHA received a small grant from Hesperian for its translation and publication.  Up to November 9th, 2009 more than 400 pages of the mentioned book is translated as first draft in to Dari Language.

Special thanks on behalf of CHA and the Afghanistan people for Hesperian team for their precious work and resources for promoting a healthy world.

Best wishes
Dr. Hamidullah Saljuqi
CHA- Afghanistan

address:
Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (CHA)
House#2nd, 3rd & 4th, end of 5th Street of Siloo, University area, Near to Sangkasha mosque
Kabul- Afghanistan
Email: hamidsaljuqi@cha-net.org
website: www.cha-net.org

3 Notes on May Day

I.

In solidarity with workers and worker movements everywhere, Hesperian celebrates May Day, International Workers’ Day, on May 1st. Although the US is one of the only countries in the world that does not recognize May Day, it was here where the celebration began, with the fight for the 8-hour work day in Chicago in 1886.  In honor of all workers who continue to struggle for justice at work and in the world, Hesperian will be closed on Friday, May 1st.

Hesperian staff members will join labor and immigrant rights groups in this year’s May Day rallies in San Francisco and Oakland. In the current economic climate where millions of workers are losing their jobs, forced to leave home in search of work or to accept contracts that slash their benefits and incomes, this May Day’s protests will be an opportunity for the Bay Area to defend the rights of all workers to safe jobs, a social safety net, and freedom from fear of destitution or deportation.

The San Francisco International Workers Day Rally 2009 is called “Workers Without Borders, United in Struggle,” and will begin in Dolores Park on Friday May 1st at 12 PM. The march starts at 2 PM and ends in the Civic Center Plaza at 4 PM. Download a flyer for the event here.  If you would like more information please call or email the organizers at (415)720-0159, (206) 312-9773, may1st09 [at] gmail.com The Oakland International Workers Day Rally 2009 is called "HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL: Legalization, Yes We Can!" and the program runs from 3:30 - 4:30pm at Fruitvale BART Plaza, followed by a march to City Hall.  Click here to download the Oakland flyer.

II.

Bay Area worker and immigrant rights advocates will have little rest after the May Day protests end.  On May 5th, the Berkeley City Council will vote on the “SweatFree Berkeley Ordinance” to prohibit the city from using taxpayer money to purchase goods produced in sweatshops.

A few weeks ago, Hesperian co-sponsored an event in support of this ordinance.  Two sweatshop workers (from Honduras and Puerto Rico) talked about the conditions in their factories and why Berkeley should join dozens of other US cities to support SweatFree municipal spending.

If Berkeley passes the ordinance, all contractors, subcontractors, and vendors who compete for Berkeley city contracts would need to sign a Sweat-Free Code of Conduct which includes a living wage, respecting the right to assembly, collective bargaining, non-discrimination, a ban on child labor, and providing safe working conditions. You can find the proposed SweatFree Berkeley Ordinance here.

Your support is needed to make sure the ordinance is passed at the Berkeley City Council Meeting on May 5th. Please call or email Mayor Tom Bates and the following Council Representatives, and let them know you support the ordinance.

Mayor Tom Bates (510) 981-7100 P (510) 981-7199 F mayor@CityofBerkeley.info	District 1 Linda Maio (510) 981-7110 P (510) 981-7111 F lmaio@CityofBerkeley.info
District 2 Darryl Moore (510) 981-7120 P (510) 981-7122 F dmoore@CityofBerkeley.info	District 5 Laurie Capitelli (510) 981-7150 P (510) 981-7155 F lcapitelli@CityofBerkeley.info
District 6 Susan Wengraf  (510) 981-7160 P (510) 981-7166 F swengraf@CityofBerkeley.info	District 8 Gordon Wozniak (510) 981-7180 P (510) 981-7188 F gwozniak@CityofBerkeley.info

The SweatFree Ordinance gives us, as taxpayers and consumers, a voice in the market by supporting companies that provide workers with living wages and benefits. It isn’t an earth-shaking change, but is a step on the road to a better world. These changes will be very important to the millions of workers around the world who are fighting for their rights.

III.
Hesperian’s book in development, A Worker's Guide to Health and Safety, will be another step on that road. This easy-to-read and heavily illustrated guide for workers, unions, women’s organizations and others will address the health hazards common to most manufacturing industries, especially those in “free trade zones” around the world.  The manual will focus significant attention on the "social hazards" of working in factories, including sexual harassment and other gender-related abuses, child labor, poverty wages, and other human and labor rights violations.

You can download the section Work dangers and solutions for free in English and Spanish. Please email your comments, suggestion, or questions to us at workersbook@hesperian.org. Your feedback can help us improve the material to better meet your needs.

A new Urdu edition of Disabled Village Children for Pakistan

The Swat Youth Front (SYF) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization in the Malakand Region of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. SYF works towards a society where all have equal access to opportunities irrespective of gender, color, race, religion and/or status. SYF’s activities revolve around the development of an informed, healthy, and peaceful society in the Swat district. Through popular education outreach since 1997, SYF encourages ordinary people to have faith in their ability to improve the well-being of their families. Activities to date include: a women’s skills development program with the aim of enhancing the ability of women to create income generating opportunities; a local awareness campaign on the destructive effects of tobacco use; and the administration of 63 non-formal schools, in collaboration with the Pakistan Literacy Commission.

The Swat district is often described as “backwards” because of low literacy rates (especially among women), the large number of people living below the national poverty line, and a high infant mortality rate compared to other parts of Pakistan. Although a small organization, SYF has taken on various projects to improve these conditions.

For example, the “Lady Health Workers Program,” a Pakistani Governmental initiative to provide basic information on a variety of health issues, is specifically aimed at improving the health of women and children. A key mandate of this Program is to track early childhood development. In Swat district, few people have enrolled in the program for a number of reasons, but particularly because of the high rate of illiteracy among women. Even when women do enroll, they find that most of the information the Program distributes is in English. SYF has translated Disabled Village Children into Urdu and organized orientation sessions to familiarize people with the book and how to use it. So far, 500 copies of the Urdu Disabled Village Children have been published and distributed free of charge to “Lady Health Workers,” other community workers, and to public libraries. The book has been very well received.

In fact, demand for the Urdu edition is so high that SYF is printing another 200 copies in April 2007. SYF is also exploring a collaboration with other NGOs (and with the Pakistani government as well) to publish another 10,000 copies for nationwide distribution.

For more information about SYF, visit their website: www.syfswat.org

Contact Information:
Badar Zaman
Executive Director
Swat youth Front
Head Office
Swat Youth Front
Opt G P S Haji Baba Mingora Swat NWFP Pakistan
Post Code: 19130
Phone #: +92-946-723388
Mobile# +92-3049701442
Email: syf@syfswat.org

To view other translations of Hesperian titles, click here

Hesperian collaborator wins Fellowship

We were excited to hear that long-time Hesperian collaborator Balaji Sampath (of Chennai, India) was awarded a Fellowship for Innovative Social Entrepreneurship jointly by the Ashoka Foundation and the Lemelson  Foundation. Balaji won the fellowship for “revolutionizing the way science is taught in India through low-cost materials promoting hands-on learning and creative dissemination techniques.” Click here.

While that is certainly true, there is so much more to say about Balaji’s years of passionate commitment to and hard work for health rights and social change.

We first met Balaji in 2000 at a meeting Hesperian convened in New Delhi to bring together all the organizations translating WHERE WOMEN HAVE NO DOCTOR in South Asia. People developing a dozen different language editions spent 3 days discussing the problems and solutions they were encountering in adapting the book for their varied cultural contexts. Representing the Tamil Nadu Science Forum and the Association for India’s Development (AID), Balaji was working to transform the book into a series of pamphlets to use as health promotion and literacy tools with poor women.

The pamphlets were used in the Hundred Block Plan, an ambitious project in which “blocks” of about 30 villages were organized to address the health needs of about 30,000 families. This project was later judged one of the ten best projects in the world by UNICEF.

Balaji and his co-volunteers are currently implementing community health programs in 250 villages, a primary education program in 300 villages, and the award-winning science education program in 200 villages.  They also have library programs in 1300 villages, and rural technology and agriculture intervention programs --newer and on a much smaller scale- in about 10 villages.

You can get a sense of the down-to-earth, activist orientation that Balaji brings to his work from a talk on “Science and Technology for Social Empowerment” that Balaji gave in June 2000:

How we fight inequality. We work with women's groups. The idea is not to save and give some loans. That is important, but the idea is to work for women's equality. After the literacy campaigns, we started an organization called Samata (equality). You start a women's group, you say, "Is wife-beating a problem?" Often they say: "It's OK, that guy can beat me. I talked too much, that is why he beat me. It's fair enough." OK, wife-beating is not a problem, but excessive wife-beating they see as a problem: "I wasn't even talking, and still he beat me." They think that is unjust. So you say, "OK, why don't you organize? Whenever you see whatever you call excessive beating, as a women's group, go and stop it."

Organizing works. If a man intervenes in wife-beating, the woman's husband will tell him to get out, that this is a family matter. He may accuse his wife of having a relationship with the man. If a woman intervenes, that is still a problem. But a women's group has a legitimate claim, because the victim is a group member. Sometimes the women's group beats up the man, sometimes it just threatens to beat him. Now that the women's group recognizes that it can address excessive wife-beating, the question of what is excessive comes up. "When I talk, why can't the fellow talk back? Why should he beat me?" Then comes the question of sharing housework. Equality is still far away, but at least sometimes the husband will look after the child...

Hesperian congratulates Balaji on winning this fellowship and we look forward to working with him and his colleagues for many years to come.

Letter from Uzbekistan

Reading the mail here at Hesperian is always inspiring and enlightening. We receive countless letters describing how our manuals and the translated versions are being used and making an impact on communities around the world. Here is a letter we recently received from Millennium Relief and Development Services.

Hi Hesperian,
I have worked in Uzbekistan since 1996 and one of my earliest projects was to adapt and translate "Where There Is No Doctor" into Uzbek. The process was long and hard because we were determined to make it relevant to the local situation, superstitions and medical environment. Probably 2 years later or so the first version was printed.
Our organization and many others used this book regularly in working with health education programs in rural and urban settings. Everyone who ever got a copy of the book used it constantly and their neighbors also would frequently borrow the book. After the first publication we donated some 1,500 copies to the Uzbekistan Health Department so they could give at least one to every "village medical center" in the country.
There have been 3 subsequent publications of the book in Uzbek and it continues to be well received and make a difference in people's lives. It is the one source that people can use to determine if the medical
advice they are receiving is correct and to learn how to treat many of their
problems before a doctor is even needed. I believe it saves poor people
great amounts of money that is often spent on needless medications.
This past year a team of specialists from the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank together with the Uzbek Health Department were visiting
villages and evaluating resources used to improve the health of the
people. During one of these visits in a village not far from the capital,
Tashkent, they stumbled across a copy of the first edition of "Where There
is No Doctor". This copy was about 2 times the size of when it was printed
because it had been used so much. The cover was torn and the book had been
sewn back together a number of times.
After a short discussion with the nurses who had been using the book, the
representative from the World Bank asked if he could trade them 2 new copies
of "Where There Is No Doctor" for this extremely used version. They were
happy to comply with this request. These delegates decided then and there
that this was the kind of tool that they needed to improve the health care
in villages. The nurses could readily use the book for teaching others about
important subjects because the book was in the language the people use to
discuss health issues. Shortly thereafter, they ordered the printing of
another 13,500 copies of the book so they could put one in the hands of
every nurse going through a re-education program.
Thank you for your willingness to make your materials so available to others
to adapt and use to help those in need. I'm sure there are hundreds of
thousands who are already benefiting from your kindness and good work in
Uzbekistan and I have a fat, torn up and repaired copy of the Uzbek version
that sits on my desk to remind me of this.

Sincerely,
Rob Graves

Millennium Relief and Development Services

To read more letters and feedback from our users click here

Vietnamese edition of Helping Children Who are Deaf released!

“The book bears great significance to current reality. It not only benefits the parents of the deaf children and the community, but also scientists who research teaching methods for children with hearing impairment.”

This beautiful Vietnamese edition of Helping Children Who are Deaf has just been published by Pearl S. Buck International (PSBI – for more information, see below). An edition of 5,000 copies have been printed in Vietnamese, of which 3,000 have already been distributed free of cost to: parents of deaf children, schools for the deaf, departments of education and training in all 64 provinces, education colleges, and organizations working for the deaf. The remaining 2,000 copies will be sold at book stores to raise the funds to reprint future editions of the book.

Helping Children Who are Deaf supports parents and other caregivers in building the communication skills of babies and young children. Packed with activities on how to foster language learning and how to thoughtfully choose between sign and oral approaches, this groundbreaking book explains ways to adapt activities and exercises for both a child's specific abilities and needs, and a family's unique circumstances. The book also explores how deafness affects a child's ability to learn language, as well as develop mentally and socially.

Feedback in Vietnam has been very positive:
“Pictures in this book are well-illustrated, easy to understand and applicable.”

“The book is written in an easily-understood language without using too much technical terms, and with concise, simple arguments and interpretations.” Helping Children who are Deaf joins several other titles from Hesperian which have also been translated into Vietnamese and have been widely distributed in Vietnam. For a complete list of our Vietnamese editions, and contact information on how to find them, visit the Translations section of our website:

About Pearl S. Buck International:
Pearl S. Buck International (PSBI) is a non-sectarian development and humanitarian assistance organization dedicated to improving the quality of life and expanding opportunities for children, who, as a result of the circumstances of their birth, have been denied access to educational, social, economic and civil rights. PSBI programs work to alleviate the impact of discrimination, intolerance and prejudice on the quality and conditions of children’s lives. The Vietnam office supports orphans, ethnic minority and disabled children through sponsorship and development programs, such as child care training for administrative staff and caregivers, community based rehabilitation services, vocational skills-building, educational assistance and inclusive education training for teachers, immunization, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, hygiene and sanitation, and advocacy for the rights of children and women. To learn more, visit www.psbi.org

Additional information:
thanhniennews
vietnamnet
usinfo.state.gov