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The trustees have recently received and reviewed ten applications for financial support of projects within areas of work specified in the Trust Deed. The decision was taken to grant the sum of £70,000 to Marie Stopes International for a project based in Indonesia over a three year period.
In arriving at their decision the trustees had to consider inter alia the appropriateness of the projects in relation to the terms of the Trust Deed, the target population(s) involved and their needs, the track record of the proposing organisations and the cost effectiveness of the investment to be made by the Birth Control Trust. While some of the unsuccessful proposals had very commendable positive features, the trustees were unanimous in the view that the project selected scored more highly than the rest and is, in absolute terms, both well conceived and likely to deliver the desired results.
Marie Stopes International is the largest private sector provider of family planning services in the UK and also had programmes in 25 other countries, mainly in the developing world. It has a policy of working closely with local communities and endeavouring to establish projects which are, after an initial period, self-supporting.
Indonesia, with 200 million people, is the fourth most populous country in the world, has a growth rate of 1.6% per annum and on current trends will have a population of 250 million in 2010. A very large proportion of the population is under twenty five years of age. While the government of Indonesia is putting substantial resources into family planning services there is still a pressing need for additional measures which will help, directly or indirectly, in improving survival of mothers and infants, employment and average income, especially among poorer people. The effects of increasing population pressure on pollution and erosion of natural resources can also be expected to be reduced through more effective limitation of birth rate.
The project will be based in the three large cities (each >1.5m) of Bandung, Bogor and Tangerang where EC funding to MSI is already supporting clinics.
The project aims and objectives are:
to reduce maternal and infant mortality and morbidity;
to reduce poverty and environmental degradation;
to generate awareness of family planning and sound reproductive health practices amongst low-income "at risk" women and their families.
The services provided will include:
family planning, with gynaecological consultations, reproductive health care and vasectomy provision through mobile teams;
primary health care; "well woman" services, immunisation, health check-ups;
safe motherhood: anti- and post-natal care, advice on breastfeeding, nutrition;
education and hygiene, birth spacing, etc;
AIDS and STDs awareness and prevention.
The trustees see this project as one likely to generate practical results of considerable value and reports of progress will appear in the Newsletter from time to time.
J A Beardmore