Tackle not only believes in using football for improving sexual health but also in contributing to the important research needed to end HIV and unhealthy sexual health practices. That’s why we’re lucky to have on our team the multi-faceted Dr Bintou Tioté.
Bintou is a young woman who obtained her research master’s degree in the sociology of Employment Organisations from the University Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké in 2011. She then attended the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Cocody where she obtained her second master’s degree and her Doctorate in Sociology of Economy and Employment, focusing her PhD research on the socio-economic drivers for young ‘gbaka’ apprentices in the public transport sector in Abidjan (‘Child Labour in the Local Minibuses’). This is what sparked her interest in working with adolescents and young people to better understand their realities through research and improve their everyday living conditions.
She came on board Team Tackle as a Monitoring and Evaluation Facilitator, where she conducted a three-month research project on the barriers preventing adolescents and young girls from accessing SRHR services in Grand Bassam. Her outstanding performance during this three-month study and her impressive research experience led her to become a qualitative research lead for Tackle’s Community Led Monitoring (CLM) project in Yopougon, Abobo, Treichville and Port- Bouët (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire) which she has been doing for over a year now.
The CLM program is a 1-year project funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Under the project, Dr Tioté ‘s primary objective is to implement and develop the RPC (Recherche Par les Coaches or Research by Coaches), an innovative CLM tool Tackle developed with the support and partnership of The University of Brighton PHD candidate Arthur Gaillard for collecting qualitative data with coaches to improve the quality of HIV services for young people.
An example of the RPC that Bintou uses for the collection of qualitative data.
“The specific research objective for me is to learn more about the perceptions of young people and adolescents on HIV prevention and their use of SRHR services within the community.” She says in explaining her work.
Dr Tioté is working to remove obstacles that prevent young people from accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services. She involves important stakeholders in the HIV sector to ensure that the research questions are relevant and come from the community. She believes that community-driven research is essential in making health services more appropriate to the needs of young people.
“The project works on HIV prevention and looks specifically at the uptake of and access to HIV testing services by young people. The second study for the CLM project also focuses on the sexual practices and behaviours of adolescents and young people in Abidjan. We want to better understand their realities, behaviours, and attitudes related to SRHR so that we can make health services more relevant to their needs.”
Her work is crucial in helping to close feedback gaps and ultimately improving the quality of HIV services for young people. With an extensive background in research in sociology, Bintou is a shining example of the importance of women in education and leadership positions.
And staying true to the International Day of Education 2023 theme, “To Invest in People, Prioritise Education,” Dr Tioté ‘s favourite part of the program is training with coaches in the collection of data.
“My favourite part is the training with coaches and the collection of data because this is where I get to see the coaches put into practice what they have learnt during the training courses,” she says.
Dr Tioté’s experience as the CLM research lead has allowed her to become more independent and to take ownership of her research from beginning to end. She believes that women are crucial vectors of education and that females as researchers and educators in this and related roles are crucial.
“It makes so much sense to recruit females as researchers in this role because, in my community, it is usually the women who do the work of educating the children in the home. They, therefore, have a very good understanding of how family dynamics work and how young people communicate in a way that will get people to respond.” She says.
Through her role as a facilitator, Dr Tioté has been able to empower coaches to become educators in their communities on their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Coaches are recruited from the community, and they work with players to help them better understand HIV testing and other SRHR-related issues.
Bintou is a true superstar facilitator at Tackle and through her work, she is scoring an SRHR hat trick by working to TackleGenderInequality, TackleHIV and TackleStigma .We know she is an inspiration to the young coaches she works with as well as the young people in the communities her work is reaching and she demonstrates the importance of investing in innovation and technology for girls and women just like we’re called to do in the 2023 International Women’s Day theme “DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality.