• Professor Ana Flavia d'Oliveira, September 2022 Inspiradoras Award finalist in the category "Awareness and welcoming".

The Inspiradoras Award has the mission of researching, recognizing and giving greater visibility to women who standout in the struggle to transform the lives of Brazilian women.

The focus is on three main causes: tackling violence against women, raising awareness and research on breast cancer, and promoting gender equity.

The award is the result of a partnership between Universa, UOL 's women's platform, and Instituto Avon, a civil society organization that carries out actions and supports projects to strengthen Brazilian women.

Professor Ana Flavia d'Oliveira was nominated for the work she has been developing on strengthening the health sector response to better deal with cases of domestic Violence Against Women.

• • HERA was pleased to contribute four presentations to the Sexual Violence Research Initiative, Cancun, Mexico, September 2022 - ‘see conferences for more details’.

• Innovations in strengthening health systems preparedness to address violence against women: learnings from providing accessible, quality, and gender-responsive services - 18 February 2021 - Webinar.

• 16 Days of Activism: No Haven at Home

• Dr Amira Shaheen, 2019 OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award winner for the Arab Region

We are proud to announce that Dr Amira Shaheen, Principal Investigator for the Palestinian HERA project, is the 2019 OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award winner for the Arab Region. This prestigious award is for early-career women scientists in the developing world, in recognition of their significant contributions to science. Awardees must have made a demonstrable impact on the research environment both at regional and international level and have often overcome great challenges to achieve research excellence. The competition is judged by a distinguished panel of international scientists; particular attention is paid to the nominees' contribution to capacity-building in their region, as well as international impact of their work.

Over the last 10 years, Dr Shaheen has worked on various research projects that have focused on child health, women’s health, environmental health, and psychological health. Currently, her work focuses on women’s health, particularly the health impacts of gender-based violence. In her role as principal investigator for the Palestinian HERA project, she is aiming to improve the health system response to gender-based violence.

You can read some of the media coverage of Dr Shaheen’s award below.

Nature Middle East:
https://www.natureasia.com/en/nmiddleeast/article/10.1038/nmiddleeast.2019.32

• The Palestinian health system response to gender-based violence dissimenation event - 23rd April 2019 - Nablus, Palestine.

The Palestinian health system response to gender-based violence meeting was held in Nablus, Palestine. Findings from the first phase of our work were shared with key stakeholders, and plans for ongoing work presented. The meeting was hosted by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at An-Najah in cooperation with the Ministry of Health units in Women's Health and Primary Health Care and Juzoor for Health and Social Development NGO.

• The Brazilian health system response to gender-based violence dissemination event - 8th April 2019 - Sao-Paolo, Brazil.

On April 8, the HERA 1 Brazilian final seminar gathered about twenty-five stakeholders in the University of São Paulo’s Faculty of Medicine to discuss the final results of the pilot research.

Professor Ana Flávia d'Oliveira presented the increase in the identification and referral of survivors cases after intervention in both primary care services health in which the research was developed, as well as other findings that corroborate this increase, such as the greater recognition of the specialized violence group (NPV) by other professionals and the understanding of the referral pathway of the cases, among others.

The discussion, along with other issues, reflected on the obstacles experienced in the intervention implementation on the current Brazilian context of austerity policies, also raised at different times by stakeholders. The event was concluded with the presentation of HERA 2 research, the result of continued collaboration between the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Bristol.

• 26th June 2017 - Interview with Profesor Ana Flavia d'Oliviera

On the 26^th June 2017 Radio USP (University of São Paulo) interviewed Professor Ana Flávia d’Oliveira about the barriers that health care providers face when addressing violence against women in primary health care (PHC) services. Professor d’Oliveira said that very often, health care providers do not recognise violence against women as a health issue and tend to focus on treating the symptoms. She emphasizes the important role of PHC services in facilitating disclosure of gender based violence and referral of women to specialized services. Describing her new study HERA (Health Responding to Violence and Abuse), she also highlights the importance of training for health care providers and its evaluation. 

• 2017 - Palestine, launches new study on primary health care responses to violence against women.

An Najah National University (Arabic version), Palestine, launches new study on primary health care responses to violence against women. On Tuesday, May 23rd, 2017, An-Najah’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences held an introductory workshop on the Palestinian health care system and battered women at the faculty building in the New Campus. Click here to hear the NBC news report on this workshop.