Me? Judgmental?

I try to live by one rule “be compassionate at all times.” This life goal has brought me to a place where I deeply value the idea of being as non-judgmental as possible, and over all I think I do a pretty good job of being open minded… But there is always room for improvement, since after all, we all judge. When I joined the GHLP one of my main motivators was that I felt I really needed to practice utilizing skills that would allow me to make sure my ventures into global health work would not put my own ideas and priorities first; that I would really be assisting a community gain well-being and health in a way that is continuous with their morals, ideas, social architecture, and perspective. I was concerned that because I THINK I’m trying to be non-judgmental I will miss that I am actually only seeing the picture through my own rose colored lenses or pushing in a way that I don’t realize is disrespectful.

Before the reproductive health seminar I experienced the bitter taste of what it felt like to realize I was truly and utterly being narcissistically judgmental. This humbling philosophical epiphany occurred while I was reading the USAID article about how the Extending Service Delivery (ESD) Project partnered with Basic Health Services (BHS) to train religious leaders to be a vital source of health education in Yemen. My immediate gut reaction was “No! Religion and medicine do not mix, they need to be separated like church and state!” But as I continued to read I realized that might gut reaction, was simply that, a visceral reaction. Maybe I have been conditioned to have that response to the idea of religion intermixing with large-scale projects at a countrywide level. After all, the majority of the public elementary schools I went to certainly beat the messages of the constitution into us. In fact… I don’t even think my childhood education ever included other countries governments or values into the curriculum… but that is a story for another day…

The truth is that in Yemen, and many other communities around the globe, the Muslim religious leaders are a vital and important part of the society. The citizens reach out to their leaders and deeply value their faith. If health education could be provided to the leaders so they could then combine it into their practice of community guidance, and the citizens and religious organizations were on board, isn’t this actually a gift, rather than a detriment?

Many citizens in this country live in communities that are very hard to get to and they don’t have easy access to health professionals or health education. Reproductive health education is extremely important in this country that deeply values fertility, and according to the USAID article “As of December 2009, religious leaders reached 644,413 people (515,320 male, 131,093 female) in five BHS governorates. Community meetings by inter-sectoral groups reached 110,287 in the same year, while newly trained community vol- unteers reached another 282,230 people, mostly women, within the first half of 2009.”

I was horrified at my judgmental first reaction, especially since this is such an amazing program with so much hope and potential success. But at the same time, I have been humbled and deeply value the awareness that comes from realizing you were judging something simply because you have been taught that its done another way in your own community. Clearly the goal of utilizing the resources and social foundation of a community, including religious leaders, to provide health education is a fantastic and effective path.

I’m sharing this experience with you, not to embarrass myself with a blog of my ridiculous judgment, but to remind you that we can all be gut-reaction opinionated, that is simply part of being human. But we also have the frontal lobe’s gracious power to evaluate all of our opinions and turn them in to positive educational experiences that will in turn help us help others.

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