Obstetric Fistula in Madagascar

This was submitted in Makeover Monday's 2020 Week 18 challenge: Operation Fistula: Obstetric Fistula in Madagascar.

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I always enjoy trying something new. While scouring the web for an interesting data set for my next analytics project, I stumbled upon Makeover Monday. Makeover Monday is a weekly social data project based out of the United Kingdom where Tableau wizards and data visualization enthusiasts come to improve their skills and collaborate with the hundreds of other participants that contribute to Makeover Monday's weekly challenges. Each Sunday, the team posts a link to a chart and data set. The challenge is to create a better version of the visualization in your own creative way, either by finding a way to tell the story differently, or unlock new meaning in the data, both are encouraged and celebrated.

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After reading more about Obstetric Fistula and taking a look at the source files, I was excited to see what I could create and how I could effectively tell the story of these young girls in Madagascar. I wanted to highlight the trauma that they go through from such a young age, with more than 77% of first-time pregnancies concurring in girls under 18. Due to many factors including a lack of proper health care facilities and poor living conditions, many of these pregnancies result in stillbirths and painful fistulas. On top of this, limited education opportunities in Madagascar severely limit young women's futures. However, fistula surgery has proven successful in healing these debilitating fistulas and have added healthy years of life to hundreds of women. Even though surgery is a successful remedy for many women, it does not cover up the problem of limited education opportunities and the prevalence of violence and forced pregnancies in Madagascar. 

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For more on Operation Fistula, click here.