Women's Health & Maternal Care
Frontline health care workers play an essential role in delivery of medical care in rural regions of India. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Bihar, India 2017
Strategic Documentation of Women's Health Programs
Women’s health programs need visual storytelling that builds donor confidence while respecting community dignity. I work with nonprofits and NGOs implementing maternal health, reproductive health, and women’s economic empowerment initiatives across multiple countries.
This documentation supports fundraising, donor stewardship, annual reporting, and advocacy by connecting field realities with stakeholder communication needs. Representative partners include PCI India, Global Communities, and Casa Materna in Guatemala.
Effective delivery of maternal care requires counseling of the entire family with the role of the mother-in-law assuming particular importance. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Bihar, India 2017
Field Experience Across Programs
I have documented maternal health programs in rural Bihar (India), Uganda’s Karamoja region, and Guatemala’s highlands, covering frontline health worker training, vaccination campaigns, prenatal care delivery, family planning education, and community health systems strengthening.
Each engagement starts with clarifying communication objectives and program context, so visual assets serve both current campaigns and long-term institutional storytelling.
Celebrating baby’s first solid food is an opportunity to teach the entire community about nutrition and health. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Bihar, India 2017
Strategic Collaboration Process
Effective documentation is built on close collaboration with program teams, communications staff, and field workers. Using the Humanitarian Photography Brief methodology, I work with organizations to define strategic objectives, key messages, and visual storytelling frameworks before fieldwork begins.
This leads to efficient use of resources and outcomes that strengthen stakeholder relationships and support funding diversification.
Click on this link to download a free copy of the Humanitarian Photography Brief Template.
First taste of solid food. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Bihar, India 2017
SELECT FIELD ASSIGNMENTS
Nadunget Health Center, Moroto Uganda
Documention for Pfizer and Partners
Women seeking medical care at Nadunget Health Centre in Moroto District, Uganda. Photograph: ©Steven Wade Adams, Uganda 2017
Nadunget Health Centre III is a medical facility located in Nadunget, Matheniko County, Moroto District, in Uganda's Northern Region. Serving as one of the seven public health facilities in Moroto District, it caters to the healthcare needs of approximately 140,000 residents.
In recent years, the health center has seen significant improvements, engaging in various partnerships with various NGO and adding essential healthcare workers. Despite these advancements, challenges persist, including a poor road network that hampers health service delivery in the region.
Women & Children's Health in Bihar, India
Strategic Partnership with PCI India & Government of Bihar
Supporting communications for the Ananya program—a partnership between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Government of Bihar to improve maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes across a population of 104 million.
This set out to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health outcomes by addressing barriers to the adoption, coverage, quality, equity and health impact of select interventions.
This involved strengthening frontline worker service delivery; social and behavior change communications; layering of health, nutrition and sanitation into women’s self-help groups (SHGs); and quality improvement in maternal and newborn care at primary health care facilities, eventually applied across the state’s population of 104 million.
During my time in Bihar, I was privileged to accompany local care workers as they visited expecting mothers to provide education on nutrition, vaccinations and all aspects of prenatal care, planning for delivery and family planning.
In a region where female infanticide remains an issue, the value and importance of girls is also a key topic of education. We also visited mothers who had just given birth, all the way to the time when their babies began on solid food.
This project was a collaboration with PCI India to capture the significant impact of this multi-faceted program in Bihar, India. The State of Bihar provided significant resources to the project, which has since been a model for maternal and child health in many other locations across India.