Population Services International

PSI has received a grant from USAID and World Learning Inc. to develop a "social marketing project" to increase the use of contraception among the local population, including those at the lowest socio-economic levels, in order to decrease rates of abortion and maternal mortality and the incidence of sexual transmitted diseases.

The project plans to increase demand for contraceptives in the Sverdlovsk oblast through education and training of medical professionals and the general population through mass media, printed informational materials, and training of 500 doctors, nurses, teachers, and social workers. To meet this demand, the project will distribute approximately three million imported condoms and other means of contraception such as injectable Depo-Provera, with information about contraceptives and instructions for use in Russian. Although focused on the prevention of abortions, the project will also encourage informed discussion of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

PSI, the world's largest single private, non-commercial provider of family planning products, plans to implement this project with the Association of Obstetricians- Gynecologists and the private firm Harmony. The Association of Obstetricians- Gynecologists is a newly formed non-commercial NGO with members throughout the Sverdlovsk oblast who have extensive knowledge of the regional reproductive health problems. Harmony, a company with both commercial clinics and a pharmaceutical distribution network in the oblast, is expected to serve as the distributor of the contraceptives for this project.

Last updated:    January 1997

A print version of much of the information contained in this NIS Third Sector Organizations section can be found in the The Post-Soviet Handbook (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1999).

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