Laetitia van Haren
Studied Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht State University from 1969-1972. Masters in 1979, after over 6 years in Africa, first in DR Congo, then in Lesotho, then Somalia. From Geneva she returned to Africa for a stint in Senegal from 1986 till 1992, where she was the chief editor of the ENDA-Third World Publications. She did consultancies for international organisation for rural development (UNDP, Care, AFD) and refugees (UNHCR).
Presently living in France near Geneva. Participant observation is at the heart of her life. She sees community development as a good thing provided it avoids the persistence of an unjust pecking order. She began her working life abroad as a volunteer teacher in Zaire (now DRC, 1972-1975), where her first baby was born in rural Kivu, in conditions now rare even in rural hospitals of Africa. She also lived and worked in Laos (1998-2003), where she did consultancies for International Organisations and trekked through remote areas to meet women and understand their way of life, staying overnight with them. In Geneva she was, among others, CEO of the International Secretariat of Defence for Children in Geneva, Humanitarian Policy Officer with ACT (Action by Churches Together), Deputy Director of the Geneva Office of Refugee Policy Group and Refugee officer with ICMC, the International Catholic Migration Commission.
She is part of the Mothers’ Legacy Project’s Geneva delegation and was an active member of the NGO Forum for Health’s mental health and psychosocial working group, now the Alliance for Health Promotion, in which she is also active. She has been coaching French volunteers going to South-East Asia for over six years 2011-2018. Mid-December 2015 she founded a non-profit association called SAHFA, or Smart Access to Health For All, to raise funds for the creation and introduction of mobile applications that connect people in rural areas to health care providers. The first project is an application for pregnant women called JamboMama! created by her and developed by start-ups in the EU and Africa. This is an ongoing activity. SAHFA aims to digitally enable rural health demand to seek out the right health care service or product at the right time. Many more apps are to follow.
Email: laetitia@sahfa.org – Website: www.smartaccesstohealthforall.org