Supporter: Uma Kandaeva

Agil draws back the lace curtain and looks anxiously out the window.

In half an hour he is scheduled to conduct the fourth in a series of trainings on child and maternal health and he is keeping an eye out for his participants. Every month, his colleague Sarvar opens his home to groups of women from his village - mothers, fiancées, mother-in-laws and young women dreaming of having their own family some day. Cushions are laid out on the floor of the sunlight room and for an hour and a half the women sit in a semi-circle, eyes eagerly trained on Agil, absorbing the new information he shares with them.

It wasn't always this easy, though.

"In the beginning, some people didn't think that the information that we were providing was correct. They thought that it would harm their children," remembers Agil. "We had to convince people that this was for them and to gain their trust."

This lack of initial trust coupled with the great barrier between the sexes in this poverty-stricken region of southern Azerbaijan made for a rough start for the Mercy Corps Child Survival program of which Agil is a part. Since 2001, the USAID-funded program has been working in the region to help mothers look after their own health and the health of their children. Working with the local population, trained doctors such as Agil are selected to travel to remote villages to conduct trainings to reduce infant, child and maternal mortality and to improve the health of children and mothers through community-based preventive actions.

"The start was the most difficult," recalls Agil. "Particularly because of the barrier between men and women. In the beginning, we had to work to change people's habits."

Culturally ingrained habits affected not only the trainings themselves, but also the probability of women internalizing what they learned in the trainings. Social norms call for women to avoid direct eye contact with men, which made it difficult for Agil to engage them in discussion. More importantly, age-old customs were often in direct conflict with the advice that he was giving them- whereas Agil stressed the importance of giving newborns breast milk within the first hour of birth, local custom held that the first three days worth of mothers milk should be discarded, depriving newborns of the vitamin dense milk necessary to boost their immune systems.

To counteract this barrier, Agil started close to home. "We all understand that in this work we must start with our own families. Our families are a part of the community and a role model for others. We must start with them and move out from there," he said.

These changes were not easy for Agil, a pediatrician who had spent the last seven years working at the regional hospital. Since joining the Child Survival program a year ago, he has undergone intensive training in up-to-date methods of maternal and child health care. "There is a big difference between what we studied in medical school and what we have learned in the health training programs provided by the Child Survival Program. Before, we were always taught to provide shots for all illnesses, whereas now we have learned the advantage of oral medication. Even as pediatricians, there were some topics that we never studied, as they were considered necessary only for gynecologists," he said.

Recalling his studies, Agil explained, "I decided to be a pediatrician in order to work with children, because children are the most unprotected citizens in the world. To protect them and help them is the most honorable and rewarding work there is."

The rewards of the past year of hard work have benefited not only the women and children of the area, but also Agil himself. Traveling to isolated areas of the mountainous region to work with a wide variety of people has made him more patience, developing his repertoire with people. According to Agil, an added benefit of the trainings provided for doctors like him is that the medical cadre feels more professional, more unified and more knowledgeable. As a result, local medical points are improving the quality of care they provide.

Leaning forward, he continues, "When I learned about the Mercy Corps Child Survival program, I was drawn to it because the work it does is close to what I feel inside." A year into his work, his enthusiasm has not waned, "I am proud to work for the Child Survival program and fulfill its mission. Through our teaching we will be able to help people."

As women began to file up the steps and into the house, Agil drops the curtain back into place and takes his place in the center of the room. With his flip chart illustrating the process of breast-feeding and notes on breast milk content and best breast-feeding practices, he is ready to conduct the next in a series of trainings aimed at creating healthier families. One by one, his trainings will continue to help the women of his community to improve the health of themselves and their families.

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