Create and distribute culturally and linguistically appropriate health education materials for rural Tibetan women.
Create a comprehensive text for field workers working on issues realted to women's health.
Train Tibetan medical students to be commuity health advocates utilizing Tibetan Healing Fund's health care materials.

In order to improve rural Tibetan women’s knowledge of basic family health, maternal and children’s health, we conducted our 2nd Community Health Education Outreach project. In January and February 2008, 50 Tibetan medical students from Qinghai University Tibetan Medical College travelled to rural Tibetan villages from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, and Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan Provinces to educate over 3,000 Tibetan women on basic maternal and child health using THF’s Maternal and Child Health Education Handbook. An outcome evaluation will be conducted in order to compare whether or not the program is effective.

Tibetan Maternal and Child Health System Resource Textbooks
In 2004 and 2006, Tibetan Healing Fund sponsored a Tibetan Maternal and Child Health Conference with the assistance of Kumbum Tibetan Medical Hospital and Qinghai University Tibetan Medical College. To our knowledge, this was a historical event as it was the first Tibetan Maternal and Child Health Conference in Tibet.

The conference explored the ideas of designing a Maternal and Child Health Public Health System and discussed the many problems, solutions and the future of women and children’s health in rural Tibet. One of the main issues identified from this conference was the lack of maternal and child health care materials written in Tibetan for women and a lack of Tibetan Medicine textbooks for health care providers.

Thirty-five health professionals from across the Tibetan regions of TAR, Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai Provinces attended the conference. Participants included Tibetan medicine trained physicians, western medicine trained physicians, village health workers, medical school professors and local midwives. Each of the health professionals had various perceptions, knowledge, expertise and experiences in health care and medicine.

One of the results of the Tibetan Maternal and Child Health Conference was the creation of a series of four complementary textbooks: Tibetan Maternal and Child Health System Resource Textbook: Public Health Perspectives of Maternal and Child Care in Tibetan Context (two volumes); Maternal Care and Delivery Manual (one volume) and the Maternal and Child Health Education Handbook (pictorial flipchart; THF published in 2005).

Content includes physiology and pathology related to pregnancy according to Tibetan and Western medicine; complete birth process according to Tibetan and western medicine and local culture; emergency obstetrics according to western medicine; antenatal and postnatal care according to both Tibetan and Western medicine and common diseases affecting rural women and children; folk delivery, MCH methodology customs; terminology of midwifery practices in Tibetan language.

Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen, Tibetan Healing Fund’s founder and Executive Director of Kumbum Tibetan Medical Hospital and Dr. Lhusham Gya, Professor and Deputy Director of Qinghai University Tibetan Medical College were the major authors and advisors for the creation, content and design of the textbooks.

THF is also collaborating with Kumbum Tibetan Medical Hospital and Qinghai University Tibetan Medical College in Xining to write, edit, print and distribute the medical textbooks.

The final editing stage is in process and we are now ready to print. $15,000 is needed to print, publish and distribute 3,000 copies of each of the three textbooks. THF is expecting to complete publication in 2008; once the textbooks are published, they will be recognized as an official publication in P.R. China and will be distributed in all Tibetan speaking regions. The textbooks will be utilized for Tibetan Community Midwifery trainings and as a guide for designing a curriculum for gynecology, obstetrics and pediatrics in Tibetan Medicine at Medical Colleges.