By Frinston Lim, Inquirer.net

When then 14-year-old Mary Ann Mandesi gave birth to her eldest inside her house in Barangay New La Union here, she was in excruciating pain for 24 hours. It was the longest day of her life.
She thought she would not see her firstborn. “I labored for almost a day,” the T’boli woman, now 34, recalled. A hilot (traditional midwife) assisted the birth. Her child was born with Down syndrome.

The harrowing experience prompted Mandesi to decide against having another child for more than a decade.
Her second child came when Mandesi was 28, and again, in spite of her brush with death during the first, the young mother gave birth at home.

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Zuellig Family Foundation’s (ZFF) “Health Leadership for the Poor” (HLP) program alumna Mayor Alfredo Coro II of Del Carmen, Surigao del Norte has been selected among leaders coming from Southeast Asia and China to be part of the fourth fellowship cohort of The Equity Initiative. It is a program of the China Medical Board, an independent American foundation working to advance health, equity and quality of care in Southeast Asia and China.

Since his participation in HLP, a program to help leaders understand the local health system to improve local health outcomes, Coro and his local health team were able to form the Seal of Good Health Governance (SOHG) program. The SOHG is a health monitoring initiative which started at the village level and was soon replicated in other municipalities across the Philippines. It garnered recognitions from different government agencies and organizations including the Health Governance Award of the Kaya Natin! Movement in 2015, the Galing Pook Awards in 2015, and the Social Innovation for Health Initiative Award in 2017. Close monitoring of health status through this initiative led to improvements in maternal health and sanitation, among others.

Coro also received ZFF’s “Outstanding Bridging Leader” awards in 2015 and 2018.

Through the 12-month The Equity Initiative fellowship, Coro will further explore health equity and leadership through various learning activities. These include exposure to cultural, political and historical contexts of on-the-ground health equity issues and social movements in and out of Southeast Asia to spark dialogue, critical thinking and problem analysis among fellows.

Peers are expected to give feedback to the fellows’ collaborative health equity projects, while experts will guide them about funding.

Further, The Equity Initiative fellows will also join the global Atlantic Fellows community to “advance fairer, healthier, and more inclusive societies” and to provide them access to other potential funding opportunities.