{"id":123977,"date":"2018-04-18T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=123977"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:23:34","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:23:34","slug":"we-will-not-stop","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2018\/we-will-not-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We Will Not Stop\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
April 18, 2018<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tTwitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\tFacebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sarah Degnan Kambou (SPH\u201984)<\/span> President of the International Center for Research on Women<\/span><\/h2><\/span><\/p>\n

Breakfast: \u201cI had a sausage McMuffin and orange juice at the BWI airport at about 5:15 a.m., but tea is my first thing in the morning. I had Countess Grey loose leaf that I bought on my last trip from London, and I was sitting there drinking it in the kitchen at 4:35 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hometown: \u201cI have a home state: New Hampshire.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Extracurriculars: \u201cI relax with my piano. I also do fun crafts. I love to keep my fingers busy, and I find that it releases my mind. I also love to garden. I\u2019ve got my strawberries and my blueberries in already.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span><\/p>\n

What is the <\/b>International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)<\/b><\/span><\/a>?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

We\u2019re an applied research institute, collecting the data that is catalytic to finding solutions for women\u2019s empowerment, gender equity, and social inclusion. We want any kind of decision, policy, program design, or investment strategy to be based on evidence. Not ideology, and not intuition. Evidence. It\u2019s all about building out the database, the fact base, to create change. <\/span><\/p>\n

How does the ICRW deal with the current distrust of facts in policymaking?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

In this kind of environment\u2014which is not just in the US, it\u2019s global\u2014you double down on the research. You bring out the building blocks of evidence that in a previous era were accepted as fact. They need to be brought out again. They need to be underscored. They need to be in some cases repackaged and repositioned within an issue area that might be of interest to a new administration. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is common ground here. With the current administration, we are very delighted that there is so much investment in women\u2019s economic empowerment. If that\u2019s where the conversation is, that\u2019s where we start, and we bring forward the evidence that helps us promote the right types of programming, investments, and appropriations that will move that agenda forward. <\/span><\/p>\n

That being said, there are certain principles where you do not backpedal. Women\u2019s comprehensive reproductive rights are women\u2019s comprehensive reproductive rights. Human rights are universal. They are integral. We can\u2019t take one and leave the others aside. These are our positions, and it doesn\u2019t matter where we\u2019re operating. It\u2019s our fundamental truth. <\/span><\/p>\n

I also want to emphasize that we do have three branches of government, and Congress continues to be strongly bipartisan in support of US foreign assistance and development programing, so it\u2019s a matter of bringing the evidence to members of Congress who are interested in moving that agenda forward on both sides of the aisle. Our focus is to stick with the facts and position them to create this common ground for understanding. It works well for us so far. <\/span><\/p>\n

Can you give an example of a recent success for the ICRW?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

We innovated and implemented a curriculum in Mumbai public middle schools for boys and girls, all about understanding that they are socialized to be who they are and to think the way they do around gender, and understanding that they can deconstruct masculinity, they can deconstruct femininity, and they can choose new ways of behaving and thinking. <\/span><\/p>\n

We did this through an applied research study, which allowed us to test this new curriculum in a certain number of public schools in Mumbai and generate the evidence base that we and our partners could take to the municipal corporation\u2014which is like the mayoral body\u2014and help them understand that by introducing this curriculum into public middle schools they could actually begin to change gender dynamics within the home and within the community. We used the same Gender Equitable Men scale that Lisa Messersmith<\/span><\/a> and her co-investigators used in Tanzania<\/span><\/a>. The Mumbai government was so impressed with those data that they took our curriculum to 250 public schools in Mumbai. Then UNICEF and the state government of Maharashtra took our curriculum to 20,000 schools. <\/span><\/p>\n

How does ICRW find the line between helping improve lives and imposing a set of values on a community?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

I learned right here at the School of Public Health, for both my MPH and my PhD, that research is actually a parallel process of social change. <\/span><\/p>\n

The ICRW Asia office is 100 percent Indian national staff, but even so, these are people who have received higher education, and they are working in communities with a huge social distance even if they are of the same nationality. It\u2019s a matter of going in recognizing that there are amazing competencies, capabilities, and assets within that community, and that people truly understand their situation best. It\u2019s a matter of recognizing that it is up to the team that comes in from the outside to create an enabling environment where they are learning together, defining an issue together, interrogating that issue together, and then anything that comes out of that study belongs to the community. It doesn\u2019t matter who your partner is, you as a researcher are there as a learning partner. <\/span><\/p>\n

You are\u2014I don\u2019t really like the word \u201cempower\u201d anymore, but I can\u2019t find an adequate substitute. I\u2019m waiting for someone to coin the next one.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with the word \u201cempower\u201d?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

I\u2019m just so tired of it! That and \u201ctransform.\u201d It doesn\u2019t happen that way. Human rights are indelible but social norms are complex. One intervention can\u2019t magically empower a whole population, but it can help create an enabling environment for women and girls to claim their rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTransform\u201d is also the wrong word. I\u2019m on the board of Free the Slaves<\/a>, and we have a board member who is a survivor. Someone was presenting on work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, talking about the \u201ctransformation\u201d of slaveholders, and she said, \u201cAs a survivor, I have to caution you strongly not to use this word. There is no such thing as transformation. It\u2019s an insult to me and my journey and the survivor that I am. I believe in change. I believe that people can move away from something, but I don\u2019t believe in transformation because that will take a much longer period of time, and probably generations.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

What led you to global health and development?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

I was a secretary in the breast cancer unit at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and I became really interested in hospital management. I needed to work full time, so I really liked that BU had a part-time program. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then I met Bill Bicknell<\/span><\/a>, who back then was teaching hospital administration and health system courses. Then he offered one of his first international health courses, and it opened up a whole new world for me. He would just communicate that with the right knowledge base and the right partners, things were actually solvable. I loved that you could create positive change and a better life for people. <\/span><\/p>\n

What I didn\u2019t understand until I actually got to the field was that we were activists. Health is a human right, and public health is about securing rights and helping people claim their rights. Once I got that down, there was no going back. <\/span><\/p>\n

I was recommended for a position as the health systems division administrator, working with Bill. We pulled together the first certificate programs, which were the short-term courses mostly for health professionals coming from the Global South. Lo and behold, we ended up creating the Center for International Health & Development [now part of the global health department<\/span><\/a>].<\/span><\/p>\n

What was the most difficult moment of your career so far?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

I arrived in Togo in 1991, and the country went into an undeclared civil war. That was how I started my 11 years on the continent, and as I made my way around Africa, it seemed like I went from the frying pan to the fire. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of all of that, my hardest moment was when I was kidnapped. That was in Zambia. I was with a colleague from CARE Zambia, and our vehicle was stolen and driven for miles and miles and miles and miles, and we didn\u2019t know what was going to happen. That\u2019s when I realized that what we were doing as development workers, as practitioners, as rights activists, actually was service. You\u2019re putting your life on the line. <\/span><\/p>\n

It came out OK, but now, as the president of the ICRW, the thing that keeps me up at night is security for my staff and partners, because we are working in very, very difficult areas. It can happen in a second, and it can turn on a dime. <\/span><\/p>\n

What was your proudest moment?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

For the 50th anniversary of the Walk on Washington, I was invited to give an address from the Lincoln Memorial to talk about women\u2019s rights. It was amazing to stand literally in the footprints of Dr. Martin Luther King and have one minute to talk about women\u2019s rights and human rights. I still get goosebumps. <\/span><\/p>\n

What is keeping you motivated and hopeful right now?<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

The March for Our Lives<\/a> made me hopeful. Anything like that\u2014I was part of the Women\u2019s March the day after the inauguration. <\/span><\/p>\n

We live in a difficult world right now. The Washington Post<\/i>\u2019s motto is, \u201cDemocracy dies in darkness,\u201d and what I see is that people are fighting the darkness. It\u2019s democracy in action that makes me feel that our agenda is alive. The need for our evidence is greater now than ever. We will not stop because women\u2019s rights, human rights, are too valuable. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Michelle Samuels<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Degnan Kambou on International Center for Research on Women, doubling down on facts, and why public health is activism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10989,"featured_media":123987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[2013,2222,1889],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3520,3523,3531,3532,3536,3544,3541],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/123977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123977"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/123977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173545,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/123977\/revisions\/173545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123977"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=123977"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=123977"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=123977"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=123977"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=123977"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=123977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}