Public Health

Nurse Pierrette teaches about the two types of Malnutrition

Overview:
Hope for Haiti implemented a community-based Public Health Program in 12 rural schools. Each school site, which already receives support through our Education Program, has chosen two representatives to attend a series of training sessions conducted by Hope for Haiti's Healthcare team. These sessions will turn the 24 community representatives into trained Community Health Workers who can identify, respond to, and prevent health issues in their areas. While this group of 12 schools and 24 workers only represents our pilot outreach for this program, Hope for Haiti hopes to eventually expand public health education to all of our program sites.

Hope for Haiti's Doctors and Nurses, in partnership with Will Perez, a medical student at Brown University, have written a comprehensive Public Health Manual to serve as a knowledge base for Community Health Workers in Les Cayes and the southern provinces. Hope for Haiti's Public Health Nurses have adapted this larger manual into interactive public health lessons complete with text, visual aids, activities, skits, and songs in Creole to be taught during training sessions at the Hope for Haiti house in Les Cayes. The nurses' focus is to educate the Community Health Workers on the content of the lessons while giving them the skills they need to share that content with their school communities.

School-based Health Education:
This program targets students at Hope for Haiti supported primary and secondary schools throughout the south of Haiti. Each pair of Community Health Workers is responsible for creatively educating all of the students at their designated school. Following the lessons provided by Hope for Haiti, the Community Health Workers will teach various age groups and grade levels, integrating curriculum details and activities as they best see fit. They will also be responsible for distributing healthcare resources like vitamins, first aid materials, and prevention tips, and completing regular reports on their progress.

The curriculum for both the Community Health Workers and the students includes but is not limited to the themes of proper nutrition, basic first aid, Cholera prevention, emergency response protocols, oral hygiene, malaria, TB & HIV identification and prevention, proper sanitation, and water purification. Hope for Haiti knows that preventive healthcare and emergency preparedness are critical to improving the quality and safety of people's lives and is confident that a micro-level approach is the ideal way to enact lasting change in these key areas.

Nurse Rachel begins the training session

Nurse Rachel teaching oral hygiene

Patrick and Nurse Rachel perform Dental Skit

Objective:
To build a strong community-based Public Health Education Program that focuses on training Community Health Workers within Hope for Haiti's current school network in preventive care, nutrition, first aid, and emergency preparedness. This program is empowering rural communities with the knowledge and skills they need to keep their families and neighbors healthier and safer.

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How you can help Hope for Haiti's Public Health Program?

Nurse Pierrette and Pierre perform Hygiene skit

Community Health Worker Trainee Presenting

• Monetary Donations: All donations made towards Hope for Haiti's Public Health Program will support the Community Health Worker trainings, improve the materials available to them, and help bring public health education to children in Hope for Haiti supported primary and secondary school classrooms.
• Medications & Healthcare Supplies: Please contact us if you have potential methods of procuring quality medications and healthcare supplies such as vitamins, thermometers, First Aid and basic clinic supplies, healthcare visual aids, etc.
• Public Health Materials: Please contact our office if you have any material (posters, flyers, brochures, books, or digital media) that could contribute to the quality of our trainings and increase the educational resources available to Hope for Haiti's medical team, Community Health Workers, and/or students.

Special appreciation to Will Perez, the Hesperian Foundation, Better Health for Haiti, Terres des Hommes, IOM, and the Hope for Haiti board, staff, and volunteers for their contributions to Hope for Haiti's Public Health training materials.