Physical Health Kenya Project #36149

Empowering Community Health Promoters

by Village Hopecore International

Project Report | Apr 22, 2019
It takes a special Heart to be a CHW.

By Okumu Sylvanus | Project Leader

CHWs constructing pit latrine for a poor family.

Community Health Workers play a vital role in ensuring that Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3,6) are attained through health education and linking the communities in Mwimbi and Muthambi Sub-counties to the available health facilities. In three months, the 97 Community Health Workers have conducted 8,154 door-to-door health education sessions in their respective villages. This has been achieved through the integration of technology in health education and data collection by use of CommCare, a mobile data collecting application. They also ensure that every household has a hand washing station with soap outside the latrines.

During the door to door health education, the Community Health Workers came across families that live in absolute poverty, where some families could not even afford single mean per day for themselves, they entirely depend on well-wishers to offer the food and any other support. In February and early March, the CHWs identified 10 families that where highly affected by poverty associated with the prevailing drought in Kenya. Most of the affected individuals are elderlies who cannot fend for themselves and worse they have been neglected by their families, they depend on seasonal farming for food. A team of 8 CHWs organized for a clean-up activity to these homes that included washing, sweeping the compound removing of jiggers and hair cutting. They also manage to build makeshift pit latrines for the families to prevent open defecation that leads to a cholera outbreak. The team also supported the families by making in-kind donations of clothes and food to the affected families. The families that got this service lacked words to explain their appreciation to the Community Health Volunteers. #Nobody is poor to give

These encounters are clear proving and justification that people are the solution to people’s problems. With the availability of funds, we would recruit 105 more Community Health Workers to strength health awareness and services in Mwimbi and Muthambi Sub-Counties

A latrine constructed by CHWs

CHWs donating food and soap to a family

CHWs rethatched the house for the family

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Jan 22, 2019
Universal Health Coverage through CHWs

By Okumu Sylvanus | Project leader

CHWs being trained on how to collect Data

Community Health Works (CHWs) is an important network of individuals who spearhead Universal Health Care Coverage through dissemination health education and awareness to families who may not otherwise have access to health services/information due to social or economic reasons like cultural beliefs, poor infrastructure, illiteracy, disability and lack of initiative.

In 2018, HopeCore recruited 97 Community Health Workers who underwent 6 days training with a focus on the following areas:

Day 1: Introduction, Roles and responsibilities of CHWs, qualities

of a community leader, communication skills, counselling skills.

Day 2: First Aid and Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)

Day 3: Preconception care, focused antenatal care, individual birth plans, breastfeeding, family

Planning.

Day 3: Nutrition, malnutrition, growth monitoring, deworming, and Vitamin A

Day 4: Introduction to sexual and reproductive health, STIs, HIV/AIDS & PMTCT, tuberculosis,

youth counselling and referrals, value clarification, data collection.

Day 5: Malaria, diarrhoea, oral rehydration therapy, coughs and colds, skin and eye infections

Day 6: Water, hygiene, and sanitation, data application training (Comcare).

We conduct a pre-test and post-test for the CHWs to determine their knowledge before and after the training. The trained CHWs are equipped with Android phones which has installed Commcare application, they are then trained on how to use the application in conducting household visits, health education and how to input data.

Additionally, we hold monthly refresher training for the CHWs to ensure they are constantly engaged in continuous learning processes hence increasing their knowledge.

In 2018, the CHWs managed to conduct 4,991 home visits with 2,819 children under 5 years they have offered health education to over 14,500 community members. The CHWs supplemented 2,499 children with vitamin A. The CHWs also identify cases of malnourished children and the children who have not to go immunization.

The Community Health Workers have also been able to help reduce cases of social isolation among patients eg stigma cases among HIV positive patients, provide grassroots health education in their villages, monitor pregnant women all through the pregnancy cycle more so by ensuring that they attend at least 4 antenatal clinics. The CHWs have made a huge impact in implementing universal health coverage.

Our target for 2019 is to expand the coverage of our services by increasing the number of Community Health Workers to 200. If funds are available, we shall equip all the 200 Community Health Workers with blood pressure measuring machines. These would enable the CHWs to monitor the ever-rising cases of blood pressure in their villages and make referrals to our facility.

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