This week we are celebrating literacy programs for all ages! Each year, on September 8th, we celebrate the opportunities that literacy provides.

At our sister schools in Zambia, literacy begins in the ECE (preschool) classroom. Mapalo ECE teacher Ms. Mubanga has made colorful, tactile, and exciting tools for students to learn their letters and sounds! Her brightly colored classroom is a haven for young learners as they make connections between, letters, colors, sounds, and actions. You may have also seen our recent blog post about the importance of songs as learning tools, where you can see our little friends in action with Ms. Mubanga! These lessons learned in the first few years are the building blocks for students’ continued learning and success.

In Malawi, DR Congo, and Luapula, our colleagues at the community centers are building up literacy programs for adults who may not have had access to literacy lessons earlier in life. School fees, book and uniform costs, and family resources all pose barriers to education, so having free access to books, literacy lessons, and caring support systems at the community centers can make a world of difference! The ability to read and write is a big step towards empowerment, which is why our colleagues have identified it so strongly. From writing one’s name to reading medicine bottles, literacy is a skill that can’t be undervalued.

We are grateful for the continued push from colleagues, supporters, and students to keep learning and building towards a brighter future!

While visiting our colleagues in Africa in June, we had the privilege of honoring two leaders who have served over thirty years as volunteer community health workers! In the photo you can see Chama Chola (left) from the DRC Wasaidizi group and Gabriel Muposhi (right) from the Luapula, Zambia Kafwa group. These special volunteers were among the first health workers our co-founder, Sherri Kirkpatrick (center), trained in this area and they have faithfully served ever since. Seeing her mother’s dedication to the community, Chama’s daughter has also joined the Wasaidizi as a second-generation health worker!

Sadly, however, our friend Gabriel passed away a few weeks ago. Gabriel had a kind and gentle disposition and he was highly respected in the community for his dedication to uplifting the women, children, and families around him. He was also a proud Kafwa volunteer, and enjoyed opportunities to learn (you can see him proudly holding a health worker training certificate, pictured below). Gabriel was lovingly honored by his family, friends, fellow Kafwa, and HealthEd Connect colleagues from afar. We were thankful to have the opportunity to recognize his years of dedicated service publicly while we were together in June. While we are deeply saddened to have lost a friend and fellow community advocate like Gabriel, we are grateful for our dedicated health worker colleagues like him who have mentored younger health workers and empowered community members.

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It’s nearly time to go back to school! Our community health worker friends in Rai, Nepal know how important it is to be well-prepared for classes, which is why they requested support to provide school supplies to vulnerable children in the area. Coordinator Pinkey Malla makes the trip out to the mountain village and prepares the supplies alongside the health workers. They alternate types of supplies each year, providing stationary and writing supplies or bookbags and larger items students may need. This annual event means that every student in the community can come to school prepared for a successful year! 

This Saturday is International Youth Day! We celebrate the young people around us and recognize the importance of “bringing youth issues to the attention of the international community and celebrating the potential of youth as partners in today’s global society.” (UN)

In Zambia, our community health workers and school colleagues do an amazing job of celebrating youth and partnering with them in exciting ways! At the community center in Mulundu, Kafwa members organize both educational and recreational activities for the children nearby. Some come during the day to learn the basics of literacy and math, and others participate in the football (soccer) program they host at the center! Many of these children helped dig up roots and level the ground where the football field is now, fully invested in creating a space that they now enjoy.

At our three sister schools, environmental conservation clubs, choirs, and traditional dance groups have formed, giving students new ways to get involved! The youth in the conservation club are learning to protect the natural world around them, and students in the dance groups are learning traditional dances from around the country. The teachers volunteering to lead these clubs are excited that important habits and skills are being enjoyed and continued into the next generation.

Our community health worker colleagues in all four countries where we work advocate and facilitate programs for the health and well-being of children. We are proud of the youth that we see learning and growing in programs led by the community health workers and uplifted by supporters like you!

We learn our ABC’s and parts of the body (like head, shoulders. knees and toes) through song and dance as children because it makes it fun and easy to remember. This teaching style still works when we become adults!

For example, in the beginning grades at our sister schools, students learn that each letter of the alphabet has its own sound and dance. You can see their song below! Our little friends, though shy, seem to be having no trouble remembering each letter, sound, and action. This will make it easier to remember as they continue to build on this information and learn to read and write!

Similarly, the Sinkhani in Malawi and the Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) from the Malawi government use easy and repeating songs to teach mothers about the importance of immunizations or child spacing. These are important lessons that could easily be forgotten if taught in a lecture-style, but hard to lose once it’s stuck in your head or stored in your muscle memory. We love to see learners of all ages using tools that will help to make their futures brighter!

Our first “Training of the Trainers” was a success! HealthEd Connect is at an exciting point in preparing the next generation of trainers to facilitate our volunteer community health worker (CHW) curriculum. The best part is the selected trainers are indigenous to the country and culture in which our CHW programs are located. Twelve participated in the Training program – six Malawi Sinkhani CHW leaders, and six nurse scholars from Malawi and Zambia connected with our CHW programs – to learn and practice the training topics before facilitating lessons the following day with 52 Sinkhani volunteers who had traveled from various regions for several days of learning and community-building.

It was incredible to watch the newly trained facilitators lead the Sinkhani CHW training and address questions in their own language and context. Three of the nurse facilitators are even daughters of CHW volunteers!

We’ll be sharing more in upcoming weekly updates about these exciting days of training in Malawi, and site visits with our CHW teams and sister schools in Zambia. For now, we’re sharing with you two videos, linked below, of Vinjeru Banda and Jean Jere, both nurse facilitators and daughters of Sinkhani volunteers from Malawi, leading songs during the Sinkhani training. Songs are not only a fun part of the group gathering; songs are used as educational tools. We’ll share more about that in next week’s update!

At the Mapalo Young Peace Makers School, a happy new addition is nearly done! During rainy season each year, teachers can find their classrooms covered with muddy footprints as students make their way in from the courtyard. But now, thanks to a newly paved courtyard, this issue will be much improved! The school has also been newly landscaped, thanks to volunteer work by the teachers, community members, and the PCSC (parent/caregiver association). The PCSC board chair, Mr. Polycarpo, led by example, often coming to the school for hours after his own work day to help move pavers for the landscaping, and making himself available in any way to help with the effort.

With the second school term just beginning, we are thrilled that everyone’s hard work paid off to complete this task while the students were on break. The students were feeling happy and proud when they returned to see their “new” looking school!

Meet some of the volunteers in this video from Mapalo head teacher, Emmanuel Mumba.

We’re so proud of our teachers who lead by example! Upon coming back for the first day of second term, the teachers at Kasompe Community School of Peace in Zambia “switched places” with their students! Head teacher Loveness wrote about this day, explaining: “We had a 'back to school activity' in which teachers were to come in school uniforms and students in [teacher] clothes. The activity was to motivate & encourage them to be in school and achieve their goal. We wanted to remind them that we were at one time students. It was really wonderful.”

We’re proud to partner with teachers and community health workers who lead with empathy, dignity, and compassion, leading students with care!

Check your inbox! We’re starting a quarterly HealthEd Connect Newsletter! With the highlights from the last few months, we’re excited to share uplifting stories and news with you. As an organization, sometimes our emails get sorted into “promotions” or other filtered inboxes, so you may find us there. Adding us to your contact list or marking us as “important” can help make sure you don’t miss a thing!

If you aren’t on our email list, you can reach out at info@healthedconnect.org to be added. We’re excited to share with you!

We are just a few days away from traveling to Zambia and Malawi! We’ll be visiting with our colleagues from the Lupula, Zambia province and the DRC right away, eager to hear how the new community centers and garden programs are going. Then, we’ll travel back into the Copperbelt of Zambia to see how the schools are getting along with the new improvements that have been made over the last year. The bulk of our trip, however, will be spent in Malawi for the first Training of the Trainers!

Nursing students and Sinkhani health worker leaders will be taught by Dr. Sherri Kirkpatrick and Dr. Jeff Manuel in the special HealthEd Connect way that gets everyone on the same level, acknowledges each person as an expert in their community, and builds up confidence and skills in each community health worker. These new trainers will then be the hosts of a community health worker training for all 54 Sinkhani volunteers, so they can put their new skills into practice. Stay tuned for photos, stories, and updates that will be shared after visiting with our partners!

Luapula Kafwa Coordinator, Jane Chibwe, has planted her roots deep in her community. As leader of a trusted and respected group of women and men, Jane has shown her skill in community development, utilizing teamwork to build the Mulundu Community Center! Now that the center itself has been built, new projects are underway at the site, and community members of all ages continue to be passionately involved as vast gardens, latrines, water projects, and a soccer field take shape!

In order to make room for the soccer field so local children could organize teams, plant roots and stumps needed to be removed so the land could be flattened as much as possible. Community volunteers cleared the field by hand (no small task!). After removing the roots, it would have been simple to push them to the side, forgotten on the property. But Jane and her team saw an opportunity to make this useful, and turned the stumps into charcoal! Charcoal is used in the village daily for cooking, using a small brazier. Now they can keep this charcoal for use at the center, cooking porridge for the children who come for educational programs, and for mothers and families who visit the center for health programs to take home if they need it. We’re thankful to partner with leaders who show such resourcefulness and compassion for their community!

Today, on World Health Day, we uplift the important work of our colleagues as they advocate for the health, education, and empowerment of the women and children around them.

When we consider what it means to be healthy, it becomes clear that many issues are rooted in nutrition. If a mother or young child is malnourished, the risks of stunting or underdevelopment are much higher. If a patient receiving medicine cannot afford or access food, their medicine may not work properly, or make them feel even sicker. Barriers to access nutritious foods are barriers to healthy families and communities. 

Our colleagues in Africa see this issue and have identified ways they can address it in their communities. At the community centers in Malawi and the Luapula province of Zambia (and soon the new center in the D.R. Congo), gardening programs have begun in earnest, bringing community members together to clear land, plant crops, and share in the harvest. These serve as “outdoor classrooms”, where people can take what they’ve learned home to start their own small gardens. Our colleagues have also built garden sheds to store tools, seeds, and future harvests that can be distributed to clients or community members during parts of the year that have little food available. 

For years in the Copperbelt province of Zambia, the health workers have been tending to school gardens that augment the school lunch programs, adding nutritious greens to support healthy development. Now, they are looking at opportunities to expand their gardens to provide more food for some of their home-based clients who may be too sick to access it themselves. 

Hunger and malnutrition are major players in barriers to health, and we are grateful that our colleagues continue to provide improved access to nourishment for children and families, and loving support for the most vulnerable.

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!