Director of Women’s Health master’s program meets with MIDRED NORHED II partners to plan activities for 2023

Dr. Sahar Hassan, director of the MIDRED-NORHED II project and Birzeit University’s Women's Health master's program, participated in a series of intensive meetings with representatives from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and project partners from Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway, and the University of Ghana to plan the project's activities for the year 2023. The meetings took place on April 16-21, 2023, in Oslo, Norway.

Dr. Hassan held three presentations, in which she outlined the project’s objectives and achievements in 2022 and plans for 2023. She also elaborated on the goals and outputs of Birzeit University’s Women’s Health master’s program and further discussed the scholarships offered by the program. In her final presentation, Dr. Hassan talked about Birzeit University's plans for a digital course on reproductive health, which is one of the project's main plans for the year 2023. She also participated in three panel discussions covering different topics.

In a presentation, Dr. Samuel Adjorlolo, project manager at the University of Ghana, also discussed her university’s plans for the aforementioned course.

Professor Anne Kaasen, director of the master's program in midwifery at Oslo Metropolitan University, delivered a presentation on strategies for the porjects' development and introduced the university’s five-year midwifery program, which allows students to graduate with bachelor's and master's degrees.

As course coordinator, Ms. Ann-Karine Valle reflected on insights gained from running the international digital course on reproductive health for the past two years at Oslo Metropolitan University. The course involved collaboration with Dr. Hassan and Dr. Hadeel Al-Masri, professor at Birzeit University’s Women's Health master's program, who taught in the course. Other collaborations included master’s students from Palestinian, Norwegian and Ghanaian universities, who completed the course.

Dr. Muhammad Khalil, expert in digital analytics and senior researcher in the Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology at the University of Bergen, elaborated on indicators, programs and platforms used to follow up with students in digital courses. He also highlighted the significance of analytics for tracking students’ progress and for research.

The project team visited the Akershus University Hospital, Norway, where they were introduced to maternity departments and policies and indicators followed in the hospital to measure performance.

During several panel discussions, the participants proposed joint research topics and offered recommendations to enhance collaboration between project partners.

Israa Sawalha, student in the Women's Health master's program who benefited from the MIDRED NORHED II scholarships, accompanied Dr. Sahar in her visit. Israa will help coordinate the logistics of the digital course during the implementation phase.