A Voice For the Voiceless
The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change.
We are currently recruiting graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.
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Meera Patel and the Centre for Eco-Agriculture Development (CAED)
Reed College
Meera Patel will be the 2009 AP Peace Fellow for the Centre for Eco-Agriculture Development (CAED) based in Kathmandu, Nepal. CAED works on the issues related to uterine prolapse. Uterine prolapse is a preventable medical condition that affects over 600,000 Nepali women, 200,000 of which require immediate medical attention. However, availability of medical care is severely limited due to social stigma and poverty, and many women fear condemnation from their families and community for seeking treatment. CAED’s mission is to alleviate the high prevalence of this condition by providing increased access to health care resources, mobilizing the interest of key stakeholders at the community and governmental levels, and dispelling social attitudes that prevent women from finding appropriate care.
Meera graduated with a B.A. in Biology from Reed College and completed a senior thesis on the effects of a novel anticancer drug on the gene expression pattern of breast cancer cells. She also spent four months at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee researching the development of poplar trees genetically engineered to reverse the effects of pollution.
In 2007, she took a leap of faith and become the first person in her family to return to East Africa after being expelled from the region under the rule of Idi Amin in 1972. Meera lived in Kenya for two months and worked for Daisy Resource Centre, a publicly-funded school for the disabled, where she spearheaded an income-generation project to meet the costs of providing necessary therapeutic and medical care to its students.
During her time at the Daisy Resource Centre, Meera witnessed the economic and educational repercussions that are faced by those afflicted with preventable diseases such as malaria and polio. This experience inspired her to pursue a career in public health, particularly in health issues that severely limit wellbeing and socioeconomic mobility of women. At CAED, Meera hopes to bring her biological and advocacy backgrounds in harmony to fight the stigma associated with uterine prolapse and maximize resources available to affected Nepali women.
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