Education
Family Planning
Maternal health
Mother
The CHAs were already informal leaders in their communities but with our trainings and support they have blossomed and become even more empowered. They are integral to the work we do, and they impact the health of their communities by planning events and projects even outside of the work Roots of Health conducts.
We have trained and continue to support 31 Community Health Advocates
Estimated girls & women affected
31
Collectively the CHAs affect 750 women. Each of these women has a partner and at least 2 children (usually more). So this estimate of 3,000 indirectly affected is on the conservative side.
Estimated community members affected
3,000
It’s been a year since you helped support health advocates in the Philippines. In that time we’ve held 14 trainings for our CHAs, including sessions on speaking with children about sex and sexuality, speaking with clients professionally and compassionately, calculating when a woman’s last monthly period was, calculating a pregnant woman’s expected delivery date and the age of gestation of her baby, and refresher courses on the reproductive systems. During this time the CHAs have been our right hands in the communities we serve and have helped us help 750 other women. The CHAs were already informal leaders in their communities but with our trainings and support they have blossomed and become even more empowered. They are integral to the work we do, and they impact the health of their communities by planning events and projects even outside of the work Roots of Health conducts. Thank you for helping our CHAs!
Get personal
On November 1, Filipinos go to cemeteries to visit their relatives who have passed on. Moods are generally festive but cemeteries are hot and crowded, and many people get overheated. In preparation, the CHAs in one of our communities pooled their resources to buy water and ice and they set up a table near one of the local cemeteries. They gave out free drinks and checked people’s vital signs. They did this without our help, to support their communities. Talk about empowered and compassionate!
Risks and challenges
Monitoring and Evaluation is very important to us so we keep records on all our clients to make sure we know what clinical service we’re providing and when our contraceptive acceptors should get refills, or when our pregnant clients should have another check up. CHAs keep monthly checklists to keep track of the women they look after. It can be hard to keep these records up to date because our clients are quite transient. Sometimes people move away, or decide for whatever reason not to continue with our services. The CHAs get frustrated when they can’t find women and have to mark them as “lost to follow up”.
What we’ve learned
We’ve learned that our smaller, more intimate trainings are better received by the CHAs. We initially poured our time and efforts into 4 major trainings (1 per quarter) in order to gather all our CHAs together and allow the ladies time to socialize and share best practices. The CHAs report that they love these gatherings, but that for actually introducing new information and skills, they prefer having the smaller group gatherings within their own communities. This is of course much more work for our CHA program coordinator, but she was up for the challenge, and conducted 10 small group trainings in each of our communities over the last year. We were happy to oblige with more intimate gatherings and our CHAs are thriving!
Next steps
Our CHAs are absolutely crucial to the work we do, and we will continue this program and keep training them in new skills and topics. We’re about to start work in a new community and will identify women for the CHA program as soon as we can!
Budget
|
Line Items |
Projected budget |
Amount spent so far |
|
Monthly $6.60 salary for 30 advocates Monthly $0.60 cell phone credit for 30 advocates 4 quarterly professional training sessions Bi-annual gathering of advocates Total |
$2,408 $240 $1,102 $350 $4,100 |
$2,408 $240 $1,275 $370 $4,293 |
Further reading
For more information, please see rootsofhealth.org
Community Health Advocates - CHAing our way to better health!
June 23, 2014
In May, the 30 Community Health Advocates (CHAs) gathered for the second (of four) professional training sessions we’ll hold this year. This session focused on training the women in vermi-culture, an innovative technique for increasing the fertility of soil by using worm poop. All 30 CHAs attended this hands-on session, an example of how we are continuing to provide CHAs with the support they need to effectively address concerns within their communities. In addition to attending this training, our 30 CHAs have remained hard at work in their communities as they continue to disperse birth control bills, help us monitor pregnant women, and act as our eyes and ears within the communities. Since we can’t always be in the communities, our CHAs form a crucial link. And now, with the ability to call/text us free of charge (thanks to the monthly cell phone loads provided by the funds from our project), we are able to stay continually abreast of any emergencies or concerns that may arise.
Risks and challenges
With 30 women from six communities working as CHAs, scheduling our trainings at a time and location that is convenient for everyone can be difficult. In addition, the learning that takes place at these trainings is not a one-time investment. In order to ensure that the CHAs are able to effectively implement what they have learned at the trainings, there needs to be on-going support from our staff, beyond the initial trainings. The ability of the CHAs to effectively implement the lessons from the professional trainings is an important step in sustaining and broadening our impact in the communities, so we want to ensure that all the women feel supported in their role.
Get personal
“My skin is crawling!” said one CHA at the training on vermi-compost. As part of the training, the CHAs were taught how to care for the worms and were able to smell the vermi-compost – which is odorless, even though it is worm feces. We also discussed the dual benefits of vermi-compost - it helps sustain the gardens in the communities and can be a source of additional income. If cared for properly, the worms will produce an excess of vermi-compost, which can be sold to other gardeners.
Next steps
Our CHAs are crucial in ensuring that the work we do in the communities leads to sustained improvements in health. In order to continue expanding the knowledge base and skillset of our CHAs, we will continue to provide professional trainings and support. In August, we will hold our third professional training with our CHAs for the year. Our Director of Health Advocates has begun to brainstorm topics for this session and is looking forward to, once again, engaging with all 30 of our CHAs!
Budget
|
Line Items |
Original budget |
Amount spent so far |
|
Monthly $6.60 salary for 30 advocates Monthly $0.60 cell phone credit for 30 advocates 4 quarterly professional training sessions Bi-annual gathering of advocates
Total |
$2,408
$240
$1,102
$350
$4,100 |
$594
$54
$275
$0
$923 |
