Community Health Extension Workers proudly displaying their certificates.
Hellen, inspects a safe water container.
We finished the CHEWs training today. It was a group of Public Health Officers, some who work for the Ministry of Health, some who work for the African Medical Research and Education Foundation (AMREF), and one who is the City Council of Nairobi’s representative in the Ministry of Public Health. They were all really great, incredibly knowledgeable, as you might imagine, and thus incredibly helpful in working with us on our training program. As I mentioned last time, these are the folks who will be our facilitators of the small groups at next week’s training in Silanga.
CHEWs practicing motivational interviewing.
Earlier in the week we worked on motivational interviewing as a tool to help people adopt healthy behaviors. We did several role-playing exercises and had a lot of fun learning to role with resistance, engage in reflexive listening, and ask open-ended questions in an attempt to help the other person figure out for themselves why it might be a good idea to change their behaviors and how they might be able to overcome their barriers.
Making liquid soap.
We finished the training today with several demonstrations. We made liquid soap, which costs less and lasts longer than bar soap. We made leaky tins, which are homemade hand washing stations. And, we made safe water storage containers, which are meant to safely store purified water to prevent re-contamination.
We are all looking forward to being in Silanga next week and working with the Community Health Workers.
Global WASHES 