Community Systems Strengthening

 

A large proportion of Kenyans bear one of the highest preventable burdens of ill health in the world. The community health approach is an effective means for improving health and contributing to general socio economic development. The determinants of health are best addressed through integrated responses and achieved through people’s active participation, especially at the community level. Facilitating people’s participation is a key element of community health strategy (CHS) implementation in Kenya.The Kenya community health strategy 2014-19 envisages building the capacity of households to not only demand services from all providers, but also to know and progressively realize their rights to equitable, good quality health care as provided for in the constitution.

 

Uzazi Salama project plans to establish 13 community units in a bid to strengthen the health system in Samburu. Up to now over, 8 community units comprising over 300 CHVs have been setup and continue to provide community services to over 5020 beneficiaries. Entry meetings with the community gate keepers/leaders have been very helpful in realizing this initiative which has also led to a buy in. The Community health Volunteers have been trained on Water and sanitation, hygiene, health promotion, family planning among other topics

Formation of mother to mother support group

Mother-to-mother (M2M) support groups are initiatives formed under the community strategy where mothers support their peers by informing them on good practices for example the need to exclusively breastfeed, advantages of mothers to go for health services to facilities as well as offer clarifications to peers on various health issues. So far over three (3) groups tied to similar community units each with 30 mothers per group per Community have been selected and are currently being trained. Health promotion through local radio station – Over time there has been need to relay health messages among communities as a way of educating them on the need to uptake health services in the facilities as well as messages on the various health topics. During this period the project engaged the Health promotion department in the County and agreed there is need to entrench this to complement other initiatives ongoing in the County. The messages will be in form of:

1. Recorded health talks
2. Skits
3. Promotional messages during  health campaigns

With the aim of training 500 community health volunteers (CHVs) in Samburu County under the Uzazi Salama initiative, the Leap mHealth Platform (http://www.leaphealthmobile.com/) has been used to complement traditional Face-to-Face training. To date twelve (12) Community Units (CUs) have been onboarded. Using simple SMS and audio technology, the Leap platform has been used to train the CHVs on the community strategy covering core health issues such as maternal nutrition, child nutrition, ante natal care, danger signs in pregnancy and after delivery, danger signs in children under five years, family planning, water, sanitation and hygiene, health promotion in the community, cholera among other health issues. To date, over 115 CHWs have been trained under this partnership, reaching over 2,875 households and 14,000 community members in Samburu County.