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Project Description:

Healthy Generations is the charitable Foundation of the Healthy Child Uganda (HCU) project.

HCU provides health education for Ugandan communities, in order to fight the high rates of death in children under five. From each of the 174 villages where HCU works, two volunteers are elected by their community. These volunteers are then trained by HCU on a variety of topics, including malnutrition, prevention of disease and recognition of child illnesses.
Leading by example, the Village Health Volunteers (VHVs) are able to teach their neighbours about healthy foods, how to wean a baby and the importance of vaccinations. Furthermore, they are able to refer community members to health centres, mobilize for and assist with Child Immunization Days and help HCU identify the at-risk children in the area that require extra attention. The VHVs conduct home visits in their village to provide individual attention and health information to their neighbours.

VHVs from each region meet monthly to report on and discuss their volunteer activities and to work on group income generating projects. These projects allow the communities to fight poverty by their own initiatives and hard work. These committed volunteers are able to connect with the individuals far beyond the reaches of many agencies. Without a doubt, children’s lives have been saved; the under five child mortality rate in HCU villages fell from 160 deaths per 1000 births in 2006 to 104 deaths per 1000 births from in 2008.
The Village Health Volunteer Project will support the work that VHVs do inHCU communities by funding training courses and educational materials, Monthly dramatic health educational events, special days to promote child nutrition, monitor growth and to identify and refer at-risk children to health services.

Village Health Volunteer Training:
5-day residential training of new VHVs to replace those who have moved away, died or left the program due to other commitments.
Train the Trainer workshops and materials:
Three 1-day workshops for VHV trainers on topics such as use of specific education tools (e.g. flannel story boards, puppets), community action planning and sustainability of the program. The trainers then use what they have learned to conduct refresher trainings for the VHVs at the monthly meetings. Materials include felt and flannel for story boards and puppet making materials.

Monthly Dramatic Health Educational Events:
This will encourage and motivate VHVs to regularly use the educational techniques they have learned. A project trainer will travel to each project area on a monthly basis to observe the local VHVs making a dramatic health presentation (e.g. using puppets, song, story boards, role playing, and theatre) in the community. Each month one group of VHVs will win a small ($25 value) prize to support group income generating activities.

Child Nutrition and At-Risk Child Outreach Days:
For Child Nutrition Days health workers and VHVs mobilize families to bring their young children out for nutritional health talks and growth monitoring (weighing). The parents of children who are identified as malnourished receive one-on-one counseling, education and referrals to care. For At-Risk Child Outreach days, physicians and health professionals travel to communities to assess children with disabilities, serious illness and health conditions and refer them to proper care.

Update from the field: March 2010

Dramatic Events
The project concluded the last phase of Dramatic Event competitions with a prize award to Ryamiyonga and Mirongo as winners in their respective areas. The function in Mirongo was officiated by the local council three lady councilor.  The Dramatic Events are educational events which aim at increasing awareness on childhood illnesses and improve the well-being of local communities. Presentations are done through music, dance, drama, puppet shows, role plays and folk songs.

Update from the field: November 2009

Since our last report, we are happy to announce that our volunteer network has grown from 350 to 449. The Ugandan government is now encouraging volunteers as a core part of the National health system and UEnd funding has allowed us to support training for the new volunteers plus offer refresher training for our original volunteers. The main fcus of training has been not only in health but also in team building and community development facilitation skills.

Update from the field: September 2009

Two-day refresher training for Village Health Volunteers was conducted in 4 parishes (Mirongo, Mugyera, Kibaare and Munyonyi) and was attended by 17 male and 50 female participants. The volunteers received training on a variety of topics. In the parish of Mugyera, for example, the course covered the topics of feeding young infants, antenatal care, first aid, special children, breast feeding, cough, diarrhea and malaria. Additional training sessions are being planned for October.

Discussions with district health officials during previous months are ongoing to learn about the government’s proposal for Village Health Teams. The goal is to determine how to best incorporate Healthy Child Uganda’s trained Village Health Volunteers into the new programme. Some of the comments about the value of the volunteers’ work (who are locally referred to as “CORPs”) follow below:

“CORPs have been our light, they have volunteered all their time to save the lives of children in our communities, in fact we rarely hear of deaths in our community, they can not be left out of the VHT programme, CORPs have mobilization skills that are exceptional, recently Betty a CORP in my village invited people for a meeting about security and child related issues, every one came, even if they said the president was coming, no other person can achieve 100% community mobilization like Betty did.” Chairman, Rwanyamahembe sub-county, during the VHT selection review meeting.

“CORPs are my people, the hygiene group! No they can never be left out of theVHT programme, I trust them in enforcing government health programmes, they monitor households and ensure that improved hygiene is in place especially in very poor households, I will write to all LC1s to include all CORPs they left out of the VHT programme.” Chairman, Rubaya sub-county, during a meeting about the VHT programme.

“CORPs have been instrumental in referring clients to this health centre. Every time I am at the OUT patient unit I ask patient who referred them to the health center and most of them from HCU areas say it’s a CORP. This is a very big indicator to me that they are very active in their communities, they deserve to be included in VHT programme.” Member-in-charge, Health Center4, Bwizibwera.

Commenting on the impact of community health volunteers, the District Health Officer of Bushenyi said that the number of malaria cases has declined from 60,000 to 20,000 per month.