Teach For Health works in several different countries and settings, but our fundamental approach is the same: “Community organizing around health”. We work in areas where resources or infrastructure are lacking or underutilized, and training community members as “health promoters”, “community health workers”, or “village health volunteers” can be an effective strategy for dealing with local issues.
We work with volunteer local partners to design and implement strategies to deal with local concerns related to health, social issues, and the environment. In each case, great care is taken to ensure that programs are owned by the participants, and not by TFH or local partners.
In each program, we start with needs assessments, sometimes focusing on training needs but also looking at physical and social infrastructure.
We follow with “resource mapping”, building a user-friendly guide to existing resources locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Finally, we help develop or modify the social infrastructure in a region to allow communities to set their own health agendas, identifying and prioritizing the problems that are important to them and developing local solutions.
Brief Project Overview:
Nicaragua
San Ramón, located in the mountainous Matagalpa Department of Nicaragua, contains 89 rural farming communities and a municipal center. Accessing health services or social programs is a major challenge. The program trains and supports Community Health Promoters in the communities of San Ramón. New health promoters are trained several times a year with the help of existing health promoters. The health promoters meet monthly to share strategies and troubleshoot challenges, and continuing education workshops on topics defined by them are held quarterly. Health promoters are trained in community assessment, and the program assists them in defining and tracking progress on specific, measurable and achievable goals to promote health in their community. Goals range from holding community cleanups to setting up a community center. Additionally, TFH in now working with the local Fire Department and Mayor’s Office to strengthen emergency planning among the highest risk communities.
Kenya
We partner with Organic Health Response to work with Community Health Workers (CHWs) in 3 rural villages on Mfangano Island, located in Lake Victoria in Western Kenya. We work out of the Ekialo Kiona Center, which serves as a base for the CHWs to hold trainings, have weekly meetings, and maintain a library of health education resources from the Hesparian Foundation and other sources. The problems faced by these communities can appear grave, with HIV/AIDS prevalence estimated between 25 – 30% and ubiquitous schistosomiasis, malaria, typhoid, and other illnesses. But there are many highly motivated groups of community members coming together at the Ekialo Center to address these issues. Our current focus is on helping the CHWs identify and develop solutions to the most urgent health and social problems in their communities. This includes resource mapping, development of curricula for regular classes on health topics to be taught by the CHWs, and working with the Ministry of Health to supplement their existing training. Currently, the CHWs are working on a clean water health education campaign in anticipation of the coming rainy season.
Clinica Martin-Baró
Clinica Martin-Baró provides free medical care to Central American migrants in the Mission District of San Francisco, California, USA. We work with Clinica’s Health Education Committee on designing curricula to meet the needs of the migrant population, and increasing Clinica’s ability to empower its patients through support groups and community outreach.
Guatemala
We recently participated in a formal program evaluation of a health education video project conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Guatemala Health Initiative in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.
Mexico
Working with the NGO Fundación Cántaro Azul, based in La Paz, Baja California Sur on a hand hygiene project in rural schools. Hand sanitizer is used as an attractive, accessible, and affordable technology to facilitate hand washing and healthy behavior.
