Building Healthy Communities

Interim Report on Community Based Health Education Program

Prepared for Global Giving by Mamelani Projects

For the Period September – November 2010

We have completed our 3rd training cycle for the year. We trained a total of 6 groups in the General Wellness Workshops and 2 groups in the Safe Infant Feeding Workshops (Mothers program). The workshops went well, and attendance has been consistent. The facilitators have been able to implement some of the new knowledge and information gained from the work we have been doing with University of Cape Town’s Department of Human Nutrition. They have been running a capacity building process to strengthen the community nutrition component of our manual. We have now updated the manual content with more detailed information on the National Food-based Dietary Guidelines, Cancer, Obesity and Hypertension. Facilitators have also been trained in how to make a hotbox and have been including this as a new component in the training. Groups have been very excited about this new component. All cooking demos were done at the end of the workshops. We have also developed a partnership with Sinako, a community-based organization in Langa, who are able to do Blood Pressure testing in that area. This is also a new component of the workshops.

Participant feedback highlighted the impact of the workshops:

“I see all these conditions in my community, but I don’t know what to do about them. Now I understand what I can do. Lack of Knowledge destroys people’s lives. The more you know, the more you can take action”

“The workshops are like a revival – reminding us of the things we know, but have forgotten. At school, you study to get knowledge to pass. Now we need to study and gain knowledge to LIVE”

Below please find the names of groups that that were trained in Cycle 3:

Consultations

The facilitators continue to support clients. 15 individual clients have been seen in the last quarter. Issues dealt with included supporting clients in getting back onto treatment, offering emotional support, support in facing family tensions and information sharing regarding opportunistic infections. One case that was brought forward was of a mother who had neglected to take her child back to the clinic for her ARVs as she had been in the Eastern Cape. Facilitators ensured that she returned as a matter of urgency and the child is now back on treatment.

Awareness Days during Nutrition Week

Aside from the workshops and consultations, we have run two community-based awareness days during nutrition week. One was in Dunoon and the other in Gugulethu. The focus was to raise awareness of National Nutrition week, share some core messages about healthy eating and talk about the pressing issue of childhood diarrhea. It is diarrhea season in these months heading towards the end of the year, and we encouraged mothers to ensure that they talk to their children about hand washing, that they maintain clean cooking areas, and we demonstrated how to make the rehydration formula.

We also ran 2 internal workshops for facilitators on reproductive health issues. We are hoping to include more reproductive health issues into the workshops in 2011.

Once the 3^rd cycle was complete, we focused on our “Follow up Program”. This happens in the last 2 months of the year. We return to groups we have trained. The focus of this time is on reconnecting with groups, maintaining our relationships with them, assessing how much health knowledge they have retained, as well as checking what their current health challenges are. In this way we ensure that we retain our important relationships with groups, as well as ensure that our program for the following year is based on community’s real felt health needs. It is in this way that our program adapts and remains relevant to those we serve. We are doing follow up with 8 groups over the November/December period.

Lastly, we have been working hard on our income-generating program, making recycled wallets. The wallets are being stocked at a number of retail outlets – and we have built up our stock for the festive season. Inquiries about our wallets can be sent to carly@mamelani.org.za.