The emergency wing of USAID has today finalised a direct grant to Zimbabwe AHEAD which will see a role out of Community Health Clubs in the coming year into four of the most hard hit districts of the country in a effort to mitigate against future Cholera and Typhoid epidemics.
This programme will establish a total of 480 new CHCs in four districts: Makoni District (pop.272,578), Mutare-Urban (pop.389,988), Chimanimani (pop 115,250) and Chipinge (pop.283,671), with an estimated total population of 1,061,487 people (2005). The CHC health promotion and hygiene training will take six months during which time 36,000 CHC households will be trained in all basic practices including the use of Water Guard to purify drinking water in the home. Taking into account their families (calculated at 6 per household) that will benefit from improved hygiene in the home, it is estimated there will be 216,000 direct beneficiaries at a cost of US$2.83 per beneficiary
This generous assistance by the United States government is seen as an indication that our methodology is being recognised by major donors as being one of the most effective means of enabling communities in some of the most challenging environments to take control of their own health despite lack of service provision by the responsible authorities.
The CHC approach has been gaining increasing attention at high levels in the WASH Sector at the 2012 Health and Water Conference in North Carolina where the Director was honoured with one of 6 scholarships presented to participants presenting papers on cutting edge development subjects.
At the side event to promote the CHC approach, Africa AHEAD is hosting speakers from the Gates Foundation, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Path, World Vision, as well as the Univeristy of Texas, and Emory North Carolina. We are highlighting case studies from Dominican Republic, Tanzania, Zambia,Rwanda and our own from Zimbabwe, presented by our Acting Director, Regis Matimati in his first visit to North America.
Dr Jamie Bartram, the Director of the Water Institute of North Carolina is activity seeking partnership with Africa AHEAD to set up a research reciprocity enabling students from the North to visit and learn practically from our programmes with the hope that Zimbabweans may also have the chance and to study in North America.