Promotion of Community Health
MAP International seeks to promote the Total Health of the communities it serves through the identification, training, equipping and supporting of community leaders as a primary tool for improving the health of individuals, families and communities.
MAP identifies candidates to become "community health promoters" and trains these leaders to effect change within their community. To be effective, community health promoters will help:
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Provide education on prevention and control of health problems
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Promote positive activities to contribute to the community’s health such as safe food production and development of access to potable water supply
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Promote immunization as a means to prevent disease
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Treatment of common diseases and injuries
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Provision of essential medicines
MAP has effectively carried out the promotion of community health in Bolivia, Ecuador, Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) training over 1200 health promoters and traditional birth attendants in the past five years.
Recent successes include:
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In Chilimarca, Bolivia, MAP expanded its Family Health Guardian program to include 500 men, women and children learning and promoting in their homes and communities health and disease prevention, nutrition, self-esteem and gender issues, conflict resolution and animal husbandry among other subjects.
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In Nairobi, Kenya, MAP trained 40 community health promoters and 20 Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in the Korogocho slum. These health promoters treated over 1,300 people through home visits last year. Also, trained 30 community health promoters in the Maasai settlement of Olooseos, Kenya, a settlement with a population of 10,000 and little access to health care
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In Ecuador, MAP conducted education workshops on child sexual abuse for 76 volunteers from 28 day care centers caring for more than 1,000 children from slum areas of Quito. These volunteers, in turn, counseled over 1,500 parents. MAP also trained 70 community health promoters on the World Vision/Ecuador staff in concepts of total health, community organizing, and community-based health care.
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In the Amazon basin, MAP trained 60 community health promoters from indigenous Indian associations in Tena, Ecuador. These leaders are effectively changing their communities by bringing promoting learning and greater understanding of the underlying causes of poverty and disease.
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