Courses

Guinea Bissau

2007-8:  Guinea Bissau

After a visit to Zimbabwe to witness the CHC in action, the founder of Effective Interventions, Dr. Peter Boon, commissioned the Director of Africa AHEAD, Dr. Juliet Waterkeyn to introduce the CHC methodology into Guinea Bissau as a component of the Randomised Control Trial known as ‘EPICs’ which was seeking to ascertain if infant and maternal mortality could be decreased by improving clinic and health seeking behaviour. 

New training material was developed based on the Zimbabwe Tool kit and 135 community based trainers were trained and started up CHCs in the usual manner. Although the RCT did not find much reduction in Malaria, there was a considerable increase in the response by community in seeking treatment from clinics which was measured in a KAP survey, and is attributed to the CHC method of community engagement.

  • Country: Guinea Bissau
  • Period: 2008-9
  • Donor: Effective Inventions
  • Partner: Effective Interventions
  • Districts: Quinara & Tombali
  • Number of Villages: 120
  • Number of households: 5,000
  • Number of CHCs: 135
  • Number of Members: 10,378
  • Number of Project Officers: 27
  • Coverage of CHC Households: 38%
  • Number of CHC facilitators: 135
  • Number of beneficiaries:  62,268

Effective Intervention Team trained by Africa AHEAD

In 2007, Dr Waterkeyn did a feasibility study and designed the key health messages for a new Tool Kit which would reflect the West Africa Context. Approximately 200 illustrations were drawn by a talented local artist, and a manual written by Dr. Rebecca King, who headed the Community Mobilisation component of the project. A base line and post intervention survey were taken.  This material is still available in Portuguese.

In 2008 the training of the Effective Intervention core staff took place and the roll on training to all of the 135 village health workers. During the year the full training took place in all 135 villages as per the usual classic CHC project design, with additional sessions to focus on maternal and reproductive health.

Topics covered as per the member card were:

  1. Danger Signs and Evacuation
  2. Diarrhoea
  3. Dehydration
  4. Managing Dehydration: ORS
  5. Malaria: Signs and Treatment
  6. Malaria: Causes and Prevention
  7. Respiratory Infections: Signs and Treatment
  8. The Antenatal Consultation A & B
  9. The First Hours of Life
  10. Routine Care of the Newborn A & B
  11. Breast Feeding A & B
  12. Infections of the Newborn 1
  13. Infections of the Newborn 2
  14. Immunisation
  15.  Pneumonia
  16. Preventing tetanus
  17. The umbilical cord
  18. Breastfeeding Participation
2007 Mid Term AHEAD Report

2007. Effective Intervention enumerators were trained to pretest the new illustration to ensure local community fully understood the messages.

Whilst the consultants from Africa AHEAD did not go back to Guinea Bissau the final evaluation was done by the Effective Intervention team and is yet to be published.

2010 Epics Trial Report