Community Health Evangelism training

9 communities along Lake Tanganyika were represented, 4 tribal african languages(Bemba, Mambwe, Lungu, Swahilli, 2 countries(Zambia and Tanzania), and 30 people differing in educational standards, health knowledge and biblical knowledge.

Our program started on Tuesday after a team member died and the funeral was on the monday. Imagine a power cut causing to oxygen compressor to switch off and your family member die! Horrible. I knew this was a possibility so borrowed a generator from town to use in case the power failed fortunately it did not but my colleague died what would have been preventable in England with ICU care.
The CHE training has gone well, we hope to follow up again in a few months time, with a second course.
The volunteers have been given tools to en vision and empower their community to bring change from within. Some struggled but many are going home really excited!

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Training in Family Planning and Community Health Evangelism

This week I'm undertaking a family planning course by Care international in partnership with USAID and the Ministry of Health next week we will be undertaking a Community Health Evangelism Training at OM's base in Mpulungu. The courses are similar but worlds apart.
We both training about 30 people with similar levels of literacy/illiteracy. If anything our volunteers will be of a lessor academic standard. The Family Planning has a budget of $6000 putting up the participants in a lodge, feeding them big tasty meals and paying them to attend.
Our course has a budget of $600 and contains missionaries, community health workers and church members who will sleeping in our classrooms, eating normal Zambian food and bringing a small contribution to the training be it $10 or a handful of fish.
This small charge may seem strange. But for community health workers and anyone attending a course in Zambia the expectation is that they will be paid to attend! If a nurse from the government goes on a vaccination campaigne in addition to their wages they receive enhancements and if they stay away from home for the night they receive $100per night plus the daily enhancements.
This is the battle we face.

The Family Planning course is of a very good quality and its in Bemba which is stretching my knowledge, but excitingly it is equipping community health workers(CHW's) to sell malaria nets, chlorine for clean water and monthly courses of the pill to enable women to space their children more effectively and condoms to help prevent the spread of HIV. These volunteers will be making a small profit from the sale of these products enabling them to push these products in the communities to bring change.

Our Community Health Evangelism Training is equipping the CHW's missionaries and church members to bring transformation and change from within their own communities without outside help vast amounts of money and by teaching christian values.

Please pray for those attending the course with me this week and for our CHE course next week with people starting off on friday to travel down the lake to Mpulungu.

Its really exciting, our clinic is running, were getting drugs from the government and training Community Health Evangelists. Moses from Chipwa and 2 of his disciples who have been building the clinic are coming for training as well as many others.

I will give another update next week! Blessings!
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Last month we saw 550 patients

Last month the medical work really started moving. We were using our fast pelican speed boat to do mobile clinics and for 2 trips where I was alone in the villages of Tongwa and Chipwa I used public boats.

Many malaria and respiratory infections and also skin diseases.
Next week I am undergoing family planning training and the week after we will be training 30 Community Health Evangelists. Please pray for the following weeks!
Excitingly I got to name my first baby in Chipwa village baby Joy was a short and uncomplicated delivery with very little bleeding! Lenie our midwife was back at our base so I did ask her a few questions over the phone with sporadic phone network which involved me climbing on a pigsty.
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Medical video online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zur-TDrjt6E