Water is life-sustaining, and our need to protect it is critical. World Water Day centers on the Sustainable Development Goal of universal access to safe water and sanitation by 2030…but we’re off track. Overuse and pollution are causing issues that extend far past local areas. Communities we partner with have seen decreased water availability, and climate change only exacerbates this issue. As water sources deplete, families must use precious time and limited resources to collect life-sustaining water. Families already at risk of inequity will feel these impacts first. Community education, collaboration, and governance are needed to protect our water and balance the needs of people and the planet.

HealthEd Connect is partnering with community health workers in several communities on water projects they have advocated for to improve health. Access to potable water is a missing link in many communities, exposing people to preventable health risks. Providing a potable water source closer to the heart of the community, and educating community members about proper maintenance and conservation of the water source, will improve health and sustainability. 

This World Water Day, we invite you to learn about the importance of water resources and how to be good stewards. Access to safe water is not guaranteed and should be protected to the best of our ability!

To find more resources and to learn about World Water Day, visit:https://www.worldwaterday.org/learn

How will you “Embrace Equity” this International Women’s Day? This day is marked to recognize and celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness about discrimination, and take action to drive gender parity. We're proud to focus our work toward equity through the empowerment of women and children through health, education, and advocacy.

Throughout the 4 countries where we serve, our community health workers are finding new ways to empower themselves. With the community health worker leadership development award, women can apply to learn new skills that may not have been accessible to them before due to status or fees. Some choose income-generating opportunities, such as learning to tailor, cater, or bake. Others pursue personal goals, like learning English or finishing high school (many of our health worker colleagues were not afforded the opportunity of secondary education). Some use the award to improve their abilities to serve their community, by learning to give immunizations or becoming traditional birth attendants. Whatever their goals, our colleagues utilize the award to improve conditions for themselves, their families, and their communities! We are grateful that this program is fulfilling its purpose in supporting opportunities for women to develop their skills as health workers, entrepreneurs, and community leaders. 

In Zambia, our Girls Achievement Program (GAP) scholarship for grades 8-12 addresses education bias while offering academic and social-emotional support. It’s still common for girls to have less chance of being supported through high school as compared to their male peers. To lessen this gap, we award five scholarships to girls for every one scholarship to a boy. We know it’s not equal - but it’s equitable - recognizing that girls don't all start with the same privileges, and adjustments are required to level the playing field. The longer a girl stays in school, the better her odds of economic stability, decision-making autonomy, and confidence to enact change. 

We are grateful for the efforts of all who make HealthEd Connect an organization that actively works to “Embrace Equity” and empower women! For more resources on International Women’s Day, click here.

We often talk about the ways our community health worker colleagues change lives through advocacy, wraparound programs at the schools and community centers, or health trainings in their communities. Often though, these larger-scale programs are put into place because of the home visits they make.

For example, the Kafwa in Mapalo, Zambia, meet on Fridays and prepare to visit homes. They go out together, meeting with the clients they’ve adopted and checking on how they’re progressing. They provide encouragement and care, two vital parts of healing, and look for ways they can help. They may bring small salves or medicines, food they’ve packaged for the family, or just themselves, but each visit is important to their clients! These house calls build relationships with their clients and trust with the community. When big ideas come up for new programs or community trainings, they have a firm foundation to stand on and advocate for change! We are so grateful for their work that empowers communities by empowering women and children!

This year's new Girls Achievement Program (GAP) and General scholars have received their school supplies and are excited for high school! GAP Leaders from each one of our sister schools have been busy, walking scholars to their new high schools to enroll and to purchase uniforms, books, backpacks, shoes, and other materials. These preparations take a great deal of time but make a big difference as scholars begin their high school careers. Students can attend classes feeling prepared, proud, and full of potential.

When they meet weekly with their Keeping in Touch (KIT) Club, scholars can share together about their high school experiences, work on homework together, receive tutoring support, and access to computers at our schools. We are grateful for the teachers, GAP and KIT leaders, and many supporters who ensure that these students are educated and empowered!

Biratnagar, Nepal community health worker coordinator, Sangeeta, has been busy with her team making community visits and hosting awareness camps to improve health practices for families!

These community events are an important way of disseminating information to the groups that will use it without needing to go door-to-door. Having a local leader means that the camps can be flexible and up-to-date with issues the community may be facing. In Biratnagar, for instance, Sangeeta and her team held camps about maternity care, nutrition, avoiding child marriage, alcohol withdrawal, and personal hygiene. Health camps can be quite large, with a recent Dengue fever camp being attended by over 80 people!

Women and children are often the groups in the highest attendance, and this gives them the important role of sharing what they’ve learned with their family and friends. Empowering women with the knowledge to improve the health and wellbeing of their family and community! 

In the Luapula province of Zambia, a boy name Alex was struggling with a wound that simply would not heal. His mother brought him to the local hospital for treatments, but this leg wound persisted for months. Thankfully, the hospital they were visiting is the same one our Luapula Kafwa coordinator Jane volunteers at! The doctors recommended that Alex and his mother visit with Jane, as the Kafwa have a very good track record of treating wounds. Sure enough, after counseling the pair on preparing and administering guava leaf antiseptic, followed by antibiotic ointment for the areas of the wound that persisted, Jane reports that Alex is doing much better now! 

Alex’s story is not unique. All of our community health worker colleagues have been trained in wound care, and have built a trusted reputation with the community and local clinics. Some patients may even be referred from the clinics to the health workers when someone is faced with difficult ongoing cases. We are so proud that the health workers’ years of experience and persistence result in knowledge gained and people healed!

Now that 2023 has begun, the nursing scholars have also started their studies! This year the nursing scholarship fund provided 11 nursing scholarships for new and continuing students from four countries.  

Empowering women and children through health, education, and advocacy is our mission. And providing scholarships for aspiring nurses is one of the many ways we promote development and access to health care in communities. Many of the scholars we support volunteer as community health workers in their spare time, providing home-based care or supporting health awareness camps for their community. Others serve as trainers when our community health worker colleagues gather to learn about current health issues and illness prevention methods in their area. All of our scholars are excited to continue their studies and help their patients and communities be healthy! 

We are thrilled to provide support for bright women and men who look forward to serving their patients and communities with professionalism and passion!

We’ve wrapped up 2022 in a bow and are excited to share later this month just how much good has been accomplished in the year!

While we reflect on the year, there’s a very important group we’d like to thank - our monthly donors! Twelve times a year, over SIXTY individuals and families make the choice to empower women and children. Their efforts build up over the month, and in 2022 alone, our monthly donors have gifted nearly $70,000 to programs that will protect and uplift communities! From building up libraries a book at a time to building confidence in scholars as they pursue diplomas, we are so grateful for this group that keeps HealthEd Connect’s mission near and dear to their hearts.

To our wonderful monthly donors - we send a big, heartfelt thank you!

We are so grateful for the international community that makes our mission to empower women and children possible! From our board members and coordinators who provide direction, to our supporters who provide the tools that build change, to our school and community health worker colleagues who pave the road to brighter futures, this team changes lives in big ways!

Orphans and vulnerable children have access to education and nutrition, families can gather and be uplifted at community centers, and women can protect their children through weighings and practices taught by community health workers. We send love and thanks to each of you for investing in advocacy, health education, and learning opportunities that will raise up communities and future generations!

In the Kikungu village of D.R. Congo, there’s great excitement! After a generous gift of land from the chiefs, the Wasaidizi health workers and Kikungu community members joined together to build a community center to serve the children and mothers of the area.

After an traditional groundbreaking ceremony, the group encountered their first major obstacle: the truck hired to transport bricks to the site could not pass over the dike due to heavy rains. Seeing that this could mean significant delays in construction, women in the community volunteered to carry the heavy blocks! One woman would bend down while others would stack the blocks on her head, and then walk nearly a mile to the site where volunteers would help to unload them before doing it over again.

Thanks to their hard work, the community center walls went up in a matter of days, and now the roof is being framed while the floors are prepared and the outside of the center is receiving its first plaster coating. All of this has been accomplished in just a few short months!

One of the project coordinators, Musans, wrote: “The Kikungu center is an event of the century…[The community says] a miracle is done in Kikungu… to show their joy, everyone who visits the works contributes with his strength…the children, young people and parents.”

Community centers like these are only possible thanks to teamwork from coordinators, community members, and supporters like you! To see an abbreviated version of how this project has progressed on-site, watch our Youtube video here. You'll be amazed! 

It’s an exciting time for our sister schools in Zambia as they celebrate a successful school year completed! Early in the morning, the Kafwa and school cooks join together to cook a very special meal for the students. Nshima, rice, meats like sausage or chicken, veggies, and special sweets are all on the menu, and take several hours to prepare.

The excitement, gratitude, and joy on the student’s faces make the hard work worth it! The children are very happy, and can take the leftover food home to their families to enjoy. We are so proud to support the teachers, school boards, and kafwa that make each school day an opportunity to educate and nurture.

Special days like these are made possible by you, friends! Thank you for blessing others generously, and uplifting health care, education, and advocacy for orphans and vulnerable children at our sister schools!

Students happily saying “End of year party”!

How often are we grateful for our toilets? If you have one, it may be easy to overlook how important it is to your daily life. However, 3.6 billion (yes, with a "b") people do not have access to safely managed sanitation.* Without safely managed sanitation, our health, environment, and dignity all come into jeopardy. Time and hard work are of the essence if we want to protect each other and meet goals to have toilets for all by 2030.* (*World Toilet Day)

HealthEd Connect includes sanitation education in community health worker training, and we're grateful to support and partner in efforts to provide access to safe sanitation systems in communities. In the rural area of Gorkha, Nepal, Ramprasad has built 31 latrines with the help of the families who will benefit from them. Their new access to safe sanitation facilities is cause for community celebration! At our partner school in Kasompe, Zambia, the new ablution (toilet) block is completely finished and in use thanks to a Rotary grant focused on WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene) in schools. And in Mulundu, Zambia, a latrine is being built next to their new community center. The community, and the environment, is healthier because of these sanitation facilities.

So, today we celebrate toilets! Moreover, we advocate for the importance of effective sanitation education and systems to maintain good community health.

Last week, the volunteer community health workers from Gorkha, Rai village, and Kathmandu, Nepal, gathered for training! Coordinator Pinkey helped to facilitate, joined by site coordinator Ramprasad, site coordinator and professional nurse Sangeeta, and nursing students Pabitra, Nikita, and Sara. This team of six helped to refresh the volunteers on WHO community-based care practices and led a new training about women’s health. The facilitators also explored topics of aging populations, pre and post-natal care, and the current Dengue fever crisis affecting Nepal. A similar training will take place next month in Biratnagar, so the volunteers in that area can also benefit from these classes.

Seeing this partnership of volunteer community health workers and professional (or future professional) nurses is exciting! This is empowerment and advocacy in action; local trainers like Ramprasad, Pinkey, and Sangeeta speak and understand the local language, culture, and issues, and they are preparing the next generation of trainers like Pabitra, Sara, and Nikita by involving them as facilitators!

For a decade now, UNICEF has been celebrating the Day of the Girl to promote issues that threaten girls’ rights, opportunities, and safety (UNICEF). The COVID-19 pandemic and global warming have hindered advancement and undermined previous successes made in recent years (World Economic Forum, All Africa), and now we must try to regain ground and work to close the gender gap. UNICEF’s goals for 2022 to 2023 include:

• Supporting the leadership of adolescent girls

• Increasing resources for and investments in adolescent girls

• Improving access to and uptake of inclusive adolescent girl-centered services

We are proud to have frameworks in place to support these goals! The Kafwa health worker volunteers, along with invested teachers at our schools, are involved in initiatives that advocate for orphans and vulnerable children, with particular sensitivity to the rights and protection of girls. The weekly Girls Achievement Program (GAP) for girls in grades 5-7 provides a safe space to learn about their bodily development, the importance of staying in school and avoiding early marriage, as well as learning life skills. Our high school scholarships for girls help to further their educational journey. And starting last year, two GAP high school graduates were awarded our nursing scholarship, preparing them for a rewarding career!

We are grateful to our supporters who make these programs possible. By continuing to find new ways to empower girls, we are preparing the next generation of empowered women!

We feel honored to share this exciting news! In June, The Nonprofit Times and Yearly held an annual report contest for nonprofits across the United States, with categories for small, medium and large organizations. HealthEd Connect won the small organization category, and we have been featured in The Nonprofit Times September issue! We are thrilled that our mission, the work and stories of our colleagues, and program impacts have been recognized with such an uplifting review. And we extend a special thank you to our extraordinary volunteer graphic designer, Ruth Seagraves, who brings our articles, photos, and lists into a cohesive report that looks beautiful! You can find our article here, on pages 12-14.

Thank you to our generous supporters investing in empowerment of women and children through health and education. Your partnership uplifts lives, and we celebrate the joy of this recognition with you!

In Mazembe, Malawi, the second of three Sinkhani community centers stands proud, ready to host weighings for infants and children, counseling moms, and new youth programs. A garden has begun next door, serving as an outdoor classroom and providing extra nutrition to the mothers who visit. Tending to the building, garden, and plot is a man named Frank.

Frank came to help at the community center during construction. After seeing his dedication and his need for a safe place to stay, the Sinkhani invited him to become the official caretaker! Frank was born with albinism, and persons with this condition may face abandoment, discrimination, and even danger due to false beliefs. Frank faced these dangers too closely, but the Sinkhani are looking out for him and his family. Our health worker friends challenge culture regularly, educating mothers and families to sort out fact from fiction related to health and wellbeing, and their advocacy is exemplified in their empowerment of Frank. Now a valuable member of the Sinkhani team, Frank shares ideas for programs at the center, showing particular compassion for the wellbeing of children.

We had the pleasure of meeting Frank in July, and are thrilled he is there to support important community programs led by the Sinkhani. We hope you’ll join us in welcoming Frank to the Malawi Sinkhani team!

After months of waiting and several attempts, we were able to deliver some very special items to our friends in June! Thanks to a generous donation of soccer gear from World of Children, we were able to take jerseys, shorts, socks, and more to support sports programs for orphans and vulnerable children! Students, teachers, and health workers alike were THRILLED and have already put the gear into action!

Our photo above is from the girls’ soccer team in Mapalo, Zambia. We’ve also linked a couple of short videos for you to share in the excitement! One is from the orphans’ support group in Lubumbashi, D.R. Congo, facilitated by Wasaidizi health worker, Jenny. Another is from Zamtan Community School of Peace, where students were cheering with joy as they saw teachers and fellow students sporting the new gear!

We are incredibly grateful for this gift made by World of Children, and are enamored with the photos and videos being shared of the children in their new uniforms, looking so proud to show their team spirit!

We’ve been celebrating a lot of milestones recently: a return trip to visit our African colleagues, Boss Mirriam’s growth and new scholarship, and our last twelve years of empowering women and children, just to name a few! Have you ever wondered how it all began? Do you wish that you could learn more about the individual stories that led to the start of HealthEd Connect?

You’ve Settled in My Heart, written by our co-founder Sherri Kirkpatrick, is a great way to “meet” the little bosses and community health workers that inspired HealthEd Connect. Walk side by side through the communities that shaped our organization and share in the joy and sorrow that only deep friendships can bring. Described as the “dedication book” by our colleague Jane Chibwe, this book is dedicated to the health workers who work every day to uplift empowerment.

Visit our book purchase page to get your copy and share in the beginnings of HealthEd Connect!

P.S. This week is Sherri's birthday, another important milestone! And sharing the story of HealthEd Connect is one of her greatest gifts! *All proceeds from the sale of her book go to HealthEd Connect.

If you’ve seen our most recent Annual Report, you’ve seen the sweet face on the cover! Comfort Mwape was a student at the Zamtan Community School of Peace when this photo was taken in 2016. After meeting with her mother in June and sharing this copy of our Annual Report, we asked if Comfort would mind sharing an updated photo with us. Look how she’s grown! Now in Grade 10 in high school thanks to our GAP (Girls Achievement Program) scholarship, Comfort is working toward her diploma and dreaming of the future.

We wish Comfort luck and happiness as she continues on her journey!

A long walk outside of Mzimba, Malawi, is the small village of Champeta. At the beginning of each month, this community comes together to uplift the health of children and the empowerment of women. Mothers awaken early, ready themselves and their children under age five, and must remember to bring their “Road to Health” booklet that tracks their child’s weight and vaccinations. Some walk very long distances to be sure that their children are growing and thriving.

Medfy, a member of the Sinkhani, is the only one in her area. Like the mothers, she walks over four miles to help with the weighing, helping the children up to the scale and writing their weights on tiny hands. Medfy supports two government Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs), Eunice and Deacon, as they update booklets, counsel mothers, and provide vaccinations. This team of three will spend most of the day, weighing over 50 children, before walking home in the dusk light.

Government HSAs and Sinkhani volunteers like Medfy provide essential support to communities as they protect their children from malnutrition, stunting, and transmissible diseases. We are proud to partner with the many Sinkhani who take it upon themselves to change the world, one small village at a time!