NEWS:China Mission 18-25 October 2008
(2008-10-18)

Barbara visited Shanghai and Ning Bo on 18th October for one week on a trade mission with UKTI, on a fact finding mission to explain about the work she does, and determine if there are opportunities for her in China.

Read this page in Chinese

Understanding contraception has particular importance in China because the country has a one child per family policy in the cities, and Barbara would like to find out what education teenagers receive in preparation for many years of birth control. This site offers a detailed insight into governmental and cultural perspectives on birth control.

In preparation for the trip the following information about Barbara and Contraception Education has been translated into Chinese by way of introduction.

Barbara Hastings-Asatourian was a nurse first, then a health visitor and a midwife before becoming a senior lecturer in nursing and public health at Salford University. She is a published writer and researcher, as well as an expert in the field of teenage sexual health and health behaviour.

She believes most passionately in making a difference in the health of others and has now found a way to have areally positive impact on sexual health, teenage pregnancy and the spread of HIV and AIDS. She is now an award winning social entrepreneur who would like to bring some of her ideas about working with young people to China.

Barbara's work is innovative. She invents ways of getting safer sex messages across using engaging and interesting media. She also trains trainers locally and shares her expertise in large international conferences and seminars

She has received an Exceptional Exporter Award in Salford in 2006 and two Special Recognition Awards in 2007 one at the finals of British Female Inventor of the Year Awards 2007 in London and one at the EU Women Inventors Network in Berlin in 2007. Barbara's work includes working in the UK and internationally. Below are examples of her work with a mystery shopper project in the UK, at a conference in Kenya, and of her resources being used in Zambia.

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Since her company began in 2001, she has presented at conferences in the UK, USA, South Africa, Thailand, Kenya and Mexico, and always takes time out to visit and where possible work with local communities, for example Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, Lwandle near Cape Town in South Africa and Mukdahan in Northern Thailand. The first three picutres are from the large slum outside Nairobi called Kibera.

The next two pictures are from Thailand, and the third from South African Women's Day celebration in London.

She became recognised by the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge as an Ambassador for Women's Enterprise and speaks at events about achievements, and last year also received an invitation to Buckingham Palace to be a guest at the Queen's Garden Party. shortly afterwards she was appointed to the Manchester and Salford Enterprise Board where she became actively involved in the "Building Bridges" strategy, which apart from regular board meetings has involved reviewing bids for Deprived Area Funding projects and selecting projects which promote enterprise in harder to reach areas. This fits very well with the mentoring at the Prince's Trust and with the Ambassadors Programme for women's enterprise, and has helped her to realise the importance of networking.

She has had many appearances on national television and radio, including prime time programmes BBC 1 and BBC 2

In September 2007 Barbara began to speak at Enterprise for all Events in Blackburn. In November 2007, having met trustee Christina de Jonge at an enterprise event, Barbara was asked to present the Hope and Optimism Award Contraception Education had sponsored for the launch of the new charity Optimism. This was an excellent event, full of energy and hope for people of all ages from Black and Asian Minorities. Contraception Education sponsored and presented the Young Entrepreneur Award in Manchester. In March 2008 Barbara was invited to speak at British Female Inventor of the Year, and to present the Special Recognition Awards in Cardiff.

Barbara is not afraid to adopt new technologies and sees the potential of social networking sites on-line for promoting safer sex and preventing unwanted pregnancies. she has even delivered a seminar in the virtual world of "Second Life".

Her most recent activities have been summarised in the slideshow below.

Testimonial about the resources from Cheyo Nyondo in Zambia

"Contraception Education is really serving its purpose as I will explain in the lines to come.
The village of Kamaila is a growing village with the youths taking up close to 75% of the population, most of whom do not have the basic skills to face the cruel world we live in.
The major problems are as follows:
(i)Early marriages, girls as young as 12 or 13 years are given into marriage.
(ii)Unwanted pregnancies especially among school going children, for example in my class of 58 of whom 33 are girls 6 already are up. This is a class of grade 9 or commonly called form twos.
(iii)Sexually transmitted illnesses.
It is a sad situation which we are fighting as teachers and as concerned citizens, the kit you left me is really also helping in informing, in awareness and in educating the community and the teaching staff and not forgetting the pupils.
My wife and I are doing the best we can to educate the young people and the old using the kit in a way that we thought would not work out, the first group was the teaching staff. After classes we played the card game and empowered the staff with information most thanked us at the end. We then moved to the pupils and they too were very thankful for such information and openness that my wife and I showed towards them.
This caused us to open up a youth center within the community, believe it or not it is taking place from our home every Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. We show the (Safer Sex) DVD you left with us and we later sit in a circle and hear from each one share their experience. It is such a wonderful time. However, the house as become too small for the meetings with the young and adults we host, therefore we have acquired a building which is in bad shape but we hope to do it up day by day and have it finished so that we can fight the ills listed above.
We hope to send you pictures of the place and the pictures of our meetings and of the school and beautiful it looks."

Testimonials for Barbara

"I could easily recommend Barbara as a colleague and business partner also. An incredibly committed and successful entrepreneur with a unique social enterprise that is effecting real change in sexual health worldwide. Barbara shares her experiences and her learning freely and is an inspiring speaker and mentor to our Students and Graduates, as well as balancing priorities as an academic and a creative and innovative business professional. Oh... and a great Yoga teacher too!"

Claire MacLean, Academic Enterprise, University of Salford 2008

“Barbara Hastings-Asatourian is rightly regarded at the University of Salford and throughout the UK as one of the most enterprising nursing and health lecturers in her field. She has devised and successfully promoted various mechanisms for promoting best practice in sexual health, especially for young people. Increasingly she has a world wide profile and has devoted energy to improving sexual health education in countries facing great challenges from HIV Infection.”

Martin Johnson, Professor in Nursing, University of Salford 2008

"Thank you so much for bringing your inspiration to our Academy delegates yesterday. You were absolutely fantastic and rounded off a great day and a great start to the second quarter for our new business school. I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to share your story and tips for success. I know everyone took something from it, including me."

Joanne Allday, Showing Off Academy 5th August 2008

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Finalist in British Female Inventor of the Year April 2003 Finalist in National Business Awards Entrepreneur Category 2003 A BFIY's Top 10 Woman Inventor and Innovator 2005 Finalist in 2005 E-Commerce ICT Innovators Awards- Health Category (DTI Interforum) Winner of 2006 Exceptional Exporter Award (UKTI, Chamberlink, Salford City Council)