Cervical Cancer Grants Program

Our first cycle of recipients were announced in August, 2019.

• Jhpiego’s pilot of thermal ablation as a cervical precancer treatment strategy at four high-volume health facilities in Gabarone helped spur wider implementation of thermal ablation across Botswana. The project’s success was amplified when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control procured 39 additional thermal ablation machines.
• The MoviCancer Foundation evaluated the impact, feasibility and acceptability of thermal ablation on cervical precancer treatment in three regions of Nicaragua, while also supporting the development of a national protocol for the use of thermal ablation. Due in part to TogetHER’s support, ten health providers in Nicaragua were trained and equipped with thermal ablation devices, resulting in 25,000 eligible women receiving treatment for pre-cancerous lesions. For more on MoviCancer's thermal ablation activities, click here.

Our second round of awards was announced in December of 2021:

• Grounds for Health facilitated the introduction of HPV testing through self-sampling within their Kenyan program, implementing self-sampling camps in a variety of settings that included an open-air market, a park, and a hospital. With support from TogetHER, Grounds for Health trained 84 community health volunteers in HPV self-sampling, educated 8,500 women with information about cervical cancer prevention, and screened almost 400 women. The project found high acceptance of HPV self-sampling among participants, in part due to convenience of accessing project locations to provide HPV samples. This project can serve as a model for the implementation of self-sampling in other low-resource settings.
• The Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS) operates a Women’s Health Program (WHP), a comprehensive women’s reproductive health program offering  breast and cervical cancer screening,  prevention and treatment of reproductive tract infections, and family planning services. Support from TogetHER’s Cervical Cancer Grants Program enabled the implementation of a ‘mother-daughter’ approach in two rural communities in Cameroon, providing HPV vaccination for almost 1,900 adolescent girls and cervical cancer screening for over 600 women – including preventative treatment for every woman identified with cervical precancer. The program highlighted the success of a mother-daughter campaign and showed how building relationships between the community and regional health administration bodies can facilitate more impactful cervical cancer prevention programs.

• ROSE Foundation is committed towards cervical cancer elimination in Malaysia, using human-centered and evidence-based solutions incorporating cultural and community-centric perspectives designed for Malaysian women. With support from TogetHER’s Cervical Cancer Grants Program, ROSE implemented a project to address communication and outreach for cervical cancer screening in multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural Malaysia. The program worked to identify and remove barriers to cervical cancer screening and normalize this health behavior among communities. The project successfully screened 614 women across seven communities in Eastern Malaysia. The program also enabled the training of 70 participants, providing education and awareness on the concept of self-care for cervical cancer prevention.

Our third round of awards was announced in March of 2023:

• Grounds for Health is scaling up HPV self-sampling in its Kenya program, applying lessons learned and informing program adaptations to reach up to 2,000 women with HPV self-testing. The significant shift in approach self-sampling represents to cervical cancer screening has affected everything from importation to service delivery. Our support for Grounds for Health’s program identified best practices in the implementation of HPV testing and treatment programs and promoted local and global dissemination of effective models of service provision, specifically in very rural settings where so many women in low- and middle-income countries reside.
• Women Together Global’s Cervical Cancer Screening and Prevention project focuses on mobilizing and training a total of 25 women and girls from its target communities in the districts of Mangochi and Mulanje to become Cervical Cancer Navigators, educating women and girls in their communities about the risk of cervical cancer and methods of prevention. Working hand-in-hand with local community health workers and district hospital staff, Cervical Cancer Navigators aimed to boost adoption of new self-swabbing methods for cervical cancer screening - reaching at least 1,000 women with the technology - and to establish a new role for women as an effective grassroots workforce for improving health in their communities.