Community Action Plan for Adolescent Substance Use Prevention: The First Step to Creating a Community Participatory Action

Background: The study was designed to explore and catalyze the development of action plan for adolescent substance use prevention in a rural community in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Methodology: This study adopted a two-phase multi-method design. The first phase was a quantitative assessment that determined the real-life situation of adolescents’ substance use in the community using 417 respondents. Contemporaneously, the second qualitative phase focused on the development of an action plan by community stakeholders for adolescent substance use prevention using thirty (30) participants selected through purposive sampling. The reliability of the instrument for quantitative data was established using a test re-test method and computed using Pearson moment correlation. A coefficient of 0.8 was obtained. Validity was established for both quantitative and qualitative instruments. The generated data were subjected to descriptive statistics whereas the qualitative data from respondents’ narratives were analysed thematically. Result: The data revealed that participants who have ever used substances consisted of 128 (59.5%) males and 87 (40.5%) females. The findings on the opinion of 30 participants interviewed about the consequences of substance use brought out majorly four consequences of substance use. The result of catalysing the involvement of community residents towards developing community action for adolescent substance use showed that the challenges associated with adolescents’ substance use as identified by the participants were discussed under one theme—living with the cause and three elements. Conclusion: Substance use prevention policies and plans in the local community have strong potential for stimulating local adolescent substance use prevention actions.

Factors of Neonatal Morbidity at the Provincial Hospital Center of Missour

Background: Although neonatal mortality decreases in different regions of the world, it is still a major problem in developing countries and particularly in Morocco. Purpose: The aims of this study are to examine the characteristics of pregnant women in the hospital center in the urban commune of Missour as well as the morphological data of the newborn and identify the risk factors implicated in neonatal morbidity. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study of collected data from records of women who gave birth in the Maternity of Missour during 2012. As well as a prospective study conducted at the maternity in 2013. Results: A total of 1108 women were included in this retrospective survey, of which 45% come from areas located far from the hospital center of the province and sometimes the access is tough in winter. Only 55.1% of pregnancy was followed. Among 1121 births, 49 babies (4.3%) showed a problematic birth situation: 31 (2.7%) newborns were hospitalized in pediatrics, of which 14 are premature. Neonatal mortality rate is 0.6% that is to say 7 early deaths. The risk factors associated to neonatal morbidity are gestational age and weight birth (in 50% of the cases, 85.7% of deaths are premature infants less than 1500 g). 14 (1.2%) were referred and 11 (0.9%) malformed were noticed. The prospective study states that among the 194 women analyzed, 89.7% are housewives. 89.1% have no medical coverage and 25.4% are illiterate. Only 29.2% benefit from a blood sample during pregnancy and 50% benefit from regular ultrasound follow-up. Conclusion: Mortality and neonatal morbidity constitute a public health priority in Morocco. Our work insists on the interest of an organized support of the newborn from the community to the different levels of the health pyramid.

Reviving Ancient Water Tunnels in the Desert—Digging for Gold?

The water shortage in the Middle East is a well-known problem. The introduction of diesel operated pumps for irrigation has caused a severe drop in groundwater levels. At the same time the demand for groundwater is growing to alarming proportions. Alternative ways of groundwater supply and management need to be found to halt social and economical disaster in the future. Why not look at history？ Qanats are subterranean tunnels ancient civilizations built to access groundwater. The technique is a sustainable method of groundwater extraction. Throughout the Middle East some settlements still make use of these ancient systems. In the summer of 2000, a community rehabilitation of a qanat was executed International Center for Areas （ICARDA） and with support from the Agricultural Research in Dry international donors. The renovation served as a pilot community intervention within a participatory action research project aimed at evaluating the use of qanats in Syria. In a second stage of the project, the pilot was scaled up to a nation-wide survey of Syrian qanats in 2001. This resulted in qanat renovations on other sites executed in 2oo2 and 2oo3 with further international support. This paper compares the first pilot renovation with a recent qanat renovation that took place in Qarah, Syria.