Marie Stopes PNG

New Marie Stopes Lae centre broken into

Assailants entered the Parer Street premises under the cover of darkness, incapacitated the lone guard and ransacked the newly opened centre.

Marie Stopes PNG Centers channel manager, Mellisah Agigo, and the Lae Centre team were on sight to inspect the damage to the new facility and account for the assets.

Ms Agigo said around K12,000 worth of items were taken, including laptops containing files for clinical quality that MSPNG highly maintains.

Women urged to be health change agents

MSPNG personnel presented sessions on Family Planning (FP) and Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) that formed part of the Health Awareness Program facilitated by the PNG Cancer Foundation (PNGCF) Programs Coordinator, Renee Marru, on Friday 30th June held at the Lohia-Rahe Resource Centre.

With the theme ‘Start the conversation. Let’s take action. Make healthy lifestyle choices,’ 32 female residents of Vabukori participated in the awareness session where they learned how to care for their loved ones in terms of Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH). 

Marie Stopes Appoints Country Director

Angelyn Famudi as its new Country Director, making her the first Papua New Guinean appointed to lead the organization since its establishment in PNG in 2006.

Angelyn Famudi serves on several boards and is an engaged community member and leader in Port Moresby, and is a proud mother of four.

She worked hard to put herself through school while caring for her family and managed to find success in some very challenging and high-pressure professional environments.

Marie Stopes Serves Remote Villages

Marie Stopes PNG has been delivering its services to women in all facets of life and geographical setting just to give a woman the power to choose if and when she has children so that she’s free to pursue her plans and dreams for herself and her family.

Kila Sele, 36, who hails from Kemabolo was happy to see the team come to her village to provide Family Planning support to the women in her community. Kila was born with impaired vision and has been in a wheelchair all her life and supported by her mother and family.

Media roundtable underway in Lae

The family planning and sexual reproductive health awareness brought together journalists, clinicians and Marie Stopes staff at the Lae International Hotel.

The media was told that teams brave the challenging terrains of Morobe to deliver reproductive health services on an average budget of K15,000 per month.

Monitoring and evaluation Manager for Marie Stopes, Adolf Kot, said people have misconceptions about family planning, believing that it belongs to a certain gender or certain age group only, or it breaches PNG’s customs and traditions.

MSPNG Transports Families For Vaccination

MSPNG has extended its support to transport the family and friends of its employees, from their homes to facilities in Port Moresby.

The initiative was launched to support the government’s ‘Sleeves Up’ COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

MSPNG Country Director, Dr David Ayres said their staff have been 100 percent vaccinated since July, and that has definitely helped them weather the third wave.

Family Planning Service In Village

Lianne (surname withheld) from Aba village in Oro’s Tamata LLG with her husband Ben were given family planning choices during a Marie Stopes outreach team patrol visit from Lae recently.  

 “Oro! Oro! Oro! Thank you Marie Stopes for visiting this part of the province,” Lianne chanted in her local vernacular.

“I was using herbs to assist my husband and I control and space our children, but that did not work,” she says.

Marie Stopes Launch Housing Policy

Dr Ayres said MSPNG seeks to become an employer of choice in the health and non-profit sectors while ensuring staff are rewarded fairly and reasonably making this an important part of achieving that.

“MSPNG recognizes that for our staff, the cost of accommodation often absorbs a large percentage of their annual income, and often diminishes their capacity to meet other essential household expenses,” he said.

Marie Stopes Trains New Intakes

The training program was on non-clinical and clinical training. The new hires comprise of one Health Extension officer and the rest are male and female nurses, all from different nursing schools and health facilities in the country.

Those selected to travel, will be stationed at respective Marie Stopes service delivery sites in Hela, Lae, Balimo, Kiunga, Daru and East New Britain.

Marie Stopes focuses on Sexual and Reproductive Health. Its aim is to educate people on the importance of Family Planning and what it entails.

COVID-19 raises need for Family Planning, and related health services

Dr David Ayers, Director of Marie Stopes PNG said during these times the demand for family planning and sexual and reproductive health services increases.

“Marie Stopes is an international organization that worked throughout the world during times of crisis like the Ebola epidemic in Africa so the organization in PNG draws on a lot of that knowledge. We know, for example, that domestic violence increases during these times and often the consequence of domestic violence is sexual and reproductive health problems in women.