WiRED International announces the launch of our Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program in Nicaragua. The effort, part of a five-country research program, follows the successful CHW project already tested in communities in Kenya and India; training is near completion in Peru, and will begin in Armenia in early 2021.
WiRED International’s community health workers (CHWs) in Kisumu, Kenya, continue to be a beacon for their communities, providing guidance, information and support for health issues. Their work is particularly important in these pandemic times, as they provide health surveillance for other illnesses such as pneumonia and cholera which could be overlooked without their monitoring. From September 1 to September 27, 14 CHWs reached 6,679 people with health services on topics such as malnutrition, hypertension, pneumonia and HIV/AIDS.
WiRED International is pleased to announce the release of a documentary, “Community Health Begins with Knowledge.”
The film, shot on location in Kisumu, Kenya, introduces WiRED’s Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program and demonstrates how the workers provide a critical link between underserved communities and the outside healthcare system. The story of the CHW program unfolds through interviews with the workers and footage of these trained paraprofessionals interacting with people of their communities.
WiRED International’s Community Health Workers (CHWs) in Kisumu, Kenya, continue to play an essential role in community education, providing advice on health issues as well as necessary referrals. In the final week of August, 14 CHWs reached 1,686 people, covering topics such as unsafe drinking water, COVID-19 and teenage pregnancy.
Increasingly, ministries of health, nongovernmental organizations and hospitals are turning to community health workers (CHWs) to fill the gap created by the scarcity of medical professionals in under-resourced areas of the globe.
The Journal of Southern California Clinicians published an article in its recent issue entitled “Introduction and Follow Up of Ongoing WiRED International Program.” The paper was co-written by WiRED Executive Director Gary Selnow, Ph.D., and WiRED Board members Maryam Othman, M.D., M.P.H., and William Crano, Ph.D., and it describes the then-impending launch of WiRED’s Community Health Worker Training Program.
Graduates of WiRED International’s Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program in Kisumu, Kenya, continue to play an essential role in improving the lives of those in surrounding communities. Since mid-July, 13 CHWs reached 3,360 people and covered health issues as diverse as nutrition and handwashing while also dispelling notions of how COVID-19 is spread.
The summer is fast coming to a close, but you can help support WIRED International into the fall and beyond by signing up for AmazonSmile.
Buying through AmazonSmile costs you nothing more. By shopping through AmazonSmile, 0.5% of the price of your purchase will be donated directly to WIRED by Amazon. The percentage taken out of each purchase can go a long way in expanding WiRED’s work in low-resource areas of the world — especially through our Community Health Worker Program — as COVID-19 and other serious diseases continue to batter these underserved populations.
In low-resource communities around the world, people often are unsure about basic health practices, such as proper handwashing techniques and safe food preparation, much less how to protect themselves from COVID-19.
WiRED International brought our Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program to Kisumu, Kenya earlier this year, and since then graduates of the month-long course are tending to the health of the populations they serve.
Almost 1,400,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in India, the third highest global numbers following the U.S. and Brazil. In the midst of the pandemic, WiRED International is nearing completion of our Community Health Worker (CHW) Training Program training in India, led by senior nursing instructors Professors Gandhimathi and Sivagami.
Myths about COVID-19 continue to circulate around the Internet. Misinformation ranges from the laughable (the virus arrived from outer space!) to the dangerous (hydroxychloroquine or bleach cure the virus). Conspiracy theories suggest that Greta Thunberg caused COVID-19 to help with climate change or that hand sanitizer companies invented the virus as a marketing scheme.