Serra Sippel is President of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE). Ms. Sippel leads the organization in the monitoring and accountability of U.S. international policies to ensure that U.S. international policies and programs promote sexual and reproductive health and rights through effective, evidence-based approaches to prevention and treatment of critical reproductive and sexual health concerns, and through increased funding for critical programs. Ms. Sippel has more than fifteen years of experience in advocacy on women's rights issues. Prior to joining CHANGE, she was International Program Director at Catholics for a Free Choice where she worked collaboratively with women's rights activists around the world to advance the sexual, reproductive and other human rights of women. In addition, she has been involved in the fight for women's rights through her work with homeless women with children in Texas and on behalf of women prisoners in Indiana. Ms. Sippel holds a master's degree in religion with an emphasis on peace and justice and is the author of numerous articles and publications on religion and sexual and reproductive health and rights. In 2005 she was a Soros Reproductive Health and Rights Fellow.
The announcement of a new gel that can reduce the risk of HIV infection is welcome news. It does not, however, make the case for providing female condoms–now–any less urgent.
The Ugandan government plans to reintroduce and promote the female condom this fall, where it may give women another tool for safer sex negotiation and protection.
In the upcoming presidential debate on foreign policy issues, will candidates be asked to address sexual and reproductive health and human rights of women as a critical component to our nation’s foreign policy?
Bush Administration appointees have tried to impose ideology on World Bank policy—most recently through attempts to strip reproductive health language from the Health, Nutrition and Population Strategy.
Serra Sippel is the Deputy Director at the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE).
Attention to the lives of orphans and vulnerable children has increased with celebrity adoptions of African children by Madonna and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and the opening of an elite school for girls in South Africa by Oprah Whinfrey. For decades children (defined as children under the age of 18) have been targets for acts of charity by celebrities, focusing on their special needs: food, education, vaccinations, and health care. But rarely addressed, if at all, are the very real sexual and reproductive health needs of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs).
