Compendium of Christian Projects Addressing the Diseases of Poverty
Project/Program name:
Community Health Evangelism (CHE):
A Tool for Home-Based Care in HIV/AIDS Programs in Developing Countries
Country: Tanzania
Church or Denomination: Primary Health Care (PHC) Ambassadors
Foundation (PAF Trustees) is a community-based Christian Training organization
registered in Tanzania as a trustee since 1994.
Project summary: Since1995 PAF Trustees has had its headquarters
on land that was donated by community members at Machame Wari Kisau village
in the Hai district of the Kilimanjaro region in northern Tanzania. The site
consists of a multi-sectoral community training center that includes agriculture
and veterinary extension services unit, appropriate technology department
and health department that aims at training community facilitators on practical
and effective preventive and health promotion practices. Construction of
an outpatient clinic with ample facilities for health education is underway.
HIV/AIDS is an integral part of the project that emphasizes improved sanitation
and nutrition as means of prolonging the lives of those who are already suffering
from HIV/AIDS.
Background/ History: The founder and current Executive
Director of PAF Trustees, Eben Mwasha, MD, worked with the Tanzanian government
as District and Regional Medical Officer for over ten years. During these
years he realized that over 80% of patients that spend many hours seeking
medical treatment in health units in developing countries could be doing
some productive work at their homes if they had taken some very simple measures
at home to prevent them from getting sick. Primary prevention of disease
is always much cheaper than curative services and communities can do much
on their own without depending on outside assistance.
With this realization, the founder has been working closely
with different community health experts to establish an institution that
concentrates on applied research and education for primary health care in
developing countries.
Goals: To strengthen preventive and wholistic health
promotion activities at district level in developing countries and to facilitate
churches and other community-based health care providers to plan and implement
sustainable supportive care to HIV/AIDS patients and their families.
Objectives:
- Teach and practice effective ways of soliciting political will for primary health care at all levels of society
- Teach and promote practical ways of achieving inter-sectoral action in community-based primary health care projects
- Conduct applied research and demonstrate various methods that
can be used by primary health care project implementers to sensitize and
mobilize communities so that they can participate freely and willingly in
their own development instead of waiting passively for the government or
donors to help them
- Develop and/or promote various cheap appropriate technologies
for primary health care that communities can construct themselves using locally
available materials to generate income, prevent disease and promote better
health for individual families and communities
- Promote the importance of spiritual health by facilitating communities
to realize that true health is a state of living in harmony with God, self,
others and the environment and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity
Who does the work? PAF Trustees works in collaboration with Medical
Ambassadors International to train trainers from various Christian denominations,
development agencies and government institutions that are involved in community-based
development projects in developing countries. These trainers train other
workers who eventually train community members. This multiplication approach
is based on 2 Timothy 2:2.
Main activities:
1. Applied research in few selected villages that act as teaching “laboratories”
2. Training of Trainers for various inter-sectoral development activities, including agriculture extension
and appropriate technologies for primary health care
3. Training trainers for the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) strategy
4. Facilitating churches and other community members involved in home-based care for HIV/AIDS
patients to adopt cost-effective and sustainable approaches for providing care
5. Health screening of village primary school children for intestinal worms, hemoglobin levels and
nutritional status and discussing the findings with parents through participatory adult teaching techniques
to identify underlying causes and possible solutions for the common health problems found in their children
Expected outcomes:
- Churches and other development agencies that take the courses
will eventually adopt the Community Health Evangelism strategy for dealing
with the whole person physically and spiritually.
- Health and community development workers will learn how to
use the school health screening approach as a tool for community mobilization
and as an effective method to weave together the pillars of primary health
care listed in the objectives.
- Communities will realize that true community development and health cannot be achieved in the absence of God, our creator.
Results: So far thousands of people have come to know
the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior through the Community Health Evangelism
strategy. All AIDS patients that have been cared for in the model villages
have had the opportunity to be evangelized before they died.
The following graphs summarize results that have been obtained
in one of the model Community Health Evangelism projects in northern Tanzania
where it has been implemented since 1995. Other indicators like children’s
hemoglobin, nutritional status, morbidity and mortality statistics have shown
remarkable improvements in this village over the last five years as well.
Lessons learned: There is much that local communities in developing countries
can achieve themselves in terms of human welfare without depending on outside
assistance.
Funding and other resources: With an exception of minimal
support to three trainers that Medical Ambassadors International provides
annually, most of the funding comes from within the communities.
Further reading or documents: N/A
Contact information:
Ebenezer Mwasha, MD., Executive Director
Primary Health Care Ambassadors Foundation.
Machame Wari Kisau,
P.O. Box 9618, Moshi.
TANZANIA.
Telephone: +255 27 2756983 or +255 741 520367.
E-mail: paftrustees@elct.org
