“When I was asked to assist the Madan Community Transformation Centre, a small community based organisation, to develop their community, I immeditely thought to do this through using the Community Health Club approach, using health promotion as an entry point to build towards other the development initiatives they had requested. I had heard about the success in mobilisation of community in Africa and was convinced that the CHC approach would also do well in Papua New Guinea.
Health Club members watch a community role play depicting common diseases in the area
I contacted Africa AHEAD and was assisted by Dr Waterkeyn in the development of training package which would be appropriate for this culture. Our plan is that the CHC pilot project in PGN will run for two years during which time we hope to collect data that demonstrates the efficacy of the CHC to deliver sustainable Health Outcomes for the HIghlanders. This may provide a case for scale up troughout the island. The initial training of trainers was undertaken in late 2018 and once the Christmas festive period was over we started 5 CHCs in the three ‘village areas’. each with 600 households and a population of around 3000.
We are now starting to establish community solar power system (Microgrid system) that is bringing power to these rural communities in PNG. We hope over the coming years to build healthier communities through the CHC model and richer communities as we engage electricity and entrepreneurship models through our Solar program.
We would like to thank Africa AHEAD for sharing the CHC process and training materials with us and the funders Rotary International.”
