March 2010

Inaya Kayed inspires a flutter of excitement amongst the large gathering of women as she describes community plans to improve antenatal clinic care and increase home visits for high-risk pregnancies. A community leader for over 25 years, Inaya is renowned for opening her doors to the residents of Sebastaya, her northern West Bank village, in her efforts to help the community tackle pressing social problems.

Through the $86 million Palestinian Health Sector Reform and Development Project (known as the Flagship Project), USAID is facilitating a dynamic and unprecedented grassroots movement to improve public health care, hand-in-hand with Palestinian women such as Inaya.

In Sebastaya, strong female leaders are at the heart of a democratic debate over health service planning and delivery. Mobilized by local women activists, community members are engaging with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) to find solutions to their public health priorities. “Flagship is the first health project in Sebastaya to work with both local institutions and the community to directly affect the lives of our citizens,” Inaya stressed. “USAID has already had a big impact for public health in Sebastaya.”

In their community-oriented society, Palestinian women are key partners for improving household health, teaching new generations about healthy living, and finding solutions for community health problems. “I lost my father when I was barely a year old, so I was raised by a strong mother who taught me the compassion and love for our community,” Inaya said.

She has dedicated her life to bringing that spirit back to Sebastaya, most recently by partnering with USAID in its efforts to build healthy Palestinian communities. With Flagship Project support, Inaya and other community leaders established a community-clinic board that works with local MoH clinicians to identify and solve the community’s priority health issues—through home visits, health education sessions, training, and clean-up days.

Within the public health care system, women are able to advocate for gender-sensitive clinical and policy approaches, both at the national and the local level. The Ministry is responding to this grassroots demand by empowering its community-based health providers to make immediate and concrete improvements to service delivery.

Through its community advocacy activities, female MoH nurses and district supervisors are taking the lead in supporting Sebastaya residents to solve community-identified health priorities, which further strengthens the role of women in improving community health and decentralizes Ministry response to primary health care needs. “I am proud to say that women are leading the social and health activities in our community, and I am even more proud of Sebastaya residents for accepting our leadership…this is because they know we are working for the good of the entire community, not just our own gender,” she said. “Even our mayor is a woman!”