By Allison Kozicharow; Edited by Elizabeth Fine
Introduction
WiRED International completed another year of bringing free community health education to low-resource areas of the world and increased its programs that train Community Health Workers (CHWs) in several countries.
WiRED’s most notable achievement this year proved yet again to be the growing success of our World Health Organization (WHO)–compliant Community Health Worker (CHW) program in Kisumu, Kenya. This program, launched right before the pandemic, has stood as a model ever since.
During the past year, WiRED’s health curriculum was adopted by NGOs in Nigeria and Liberia to prepare CHWs to serve low-resource populations. Other countries have put in place procedures to adopt the curriculum in 2025.
WiRED’s CHW Program
Why are CHWs important?
- They provide basic clinical services in isolated communities where doctors and nurses are not available.
- They offer medical screenings by taking vital signs, testing for hypertension, TB, HIV/AIDS, high blood sugar and performing other assessment measures.
- They can offer vaccine clinics under pandemic conditions.
- They act as bridges to the medical community through referrals and follow-up.
- They prepare local populations for emerging disease such as mpox.
- They teach local people in classes or individually about disease prevention and care.
- They distribute food for famine relief.
- They come from the communities they serve and are held in high regard.
- They change behavior and attitudes and educate people to understand and take responsibility for their own health.
They work in small teams and have demonstrated their capacity to reach a large portion of the population with clinical services and training programs.
In addition, CHWs in Kisumu often take part in innovative projects. One example is joining another NGO in the Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) Project, begun last year. Once a taboo subject and a source of poor and unsafe hygiene, the MHM project quickly bore fruit, and this year reported a resounding success. Today, WiRED CHWs record MHM as a top health topic almost every month. The MHM project demonstrates the flexibility of the CHW program in which CHWs can expand and apply their skills in specific, needed areas — while attending to the overall health of their communities during their general deployment work.
Continuing Medical Education (CME) Program
WiRED’s CME program is a critical part of our CHWs’ training. When WiRED launched our CHW program in 2020 we followed the World Health Organization requirement that, after basic training, CHWs annually must earn CME credits to retain their credentials.
WiRED’s CME program enables CHWs to maintain their currency and expand their skills in basic medical procedures and community health issues. The CME modules also have been adopted by many nurses and other health professionals in order to stay current. On January 5, 2025, WiRED will release an app that allows CHWs instantly to access our entire catalog of more than 400 training modules. Shortly afterwards, in mid-January, we will launch a companion tool that allows registered CHWs to record and maintain their CME completion data. The module access app and the CME app are the first of their kind anywhere, available to CHWs globally.
Specific Accomplishments
WiRED experienced a busy 2024. Here is a sample of WiRED achievements this year:
- We tracked climate change’s effect on underserved regions amid floods, droughts and extreme weather in places WiRED serves such as Kenya.
- We promoted the concept of One Health and began developing a project around it for 2025.
- We reported monthly on our CHW team deployment, profiling CHWs and featuring CHW testimonials and personal stories from the field.
- We continued to support Ukraine through the free distribution of WiRED’s Health and First Aid Training Program, which we launched last year.
- We released two new modules — Lassa Fever and Rabies — to our peer-reviewed library of 400+ topics.
- We reported on disease outbreaks such as dengue in Brazil and mpox in Africa, critical shortages of cholera vaccine and the value and science of vaccines.
- We kept a spotlight on rheumatic heart disease (RHD) — a preventable disease that affects 40 million people worldwide, especially children in low- and middle-income countries. WiRED offers a series of RHD modules, an echocardiogram training series for nurses and an RHD video animation.
WiRED in Armenia
WiRED, in partnership with WiRED–Armenia, Caritas Armenia and MIASIN (an NGO), completed a year-long project built on a series of five lectures. The series focused on health education in Armenia, possibly leading to a larger CHW program to address the health needs of refugees and other populations in this Eurasian country. The lectures sought to
- promote healthcare awareness,
- empower the healthcare community,
- enhance the knowledge of frontline workers and
- contribute to the training of WiRED CHWs in Armenia.
Participants throughout the series included teachers, students, doctors, nurses and parish priests — all interested in improving health care in Armenia. Everyone agreed that the lectures were a huge success that increased the probability of widespread CHW training in their country.
Looking Ahead to 2025
Throughout our history WiRED has always sought partners in NGOs, health ministries, academic institutions and hospitals. Partnerships this year include our long-standing collaboration with KUAP Pandipieri and Sister Bernadette Nealon (continuing the Sunshine-Mitzvah Fund) in Kenya; close ties with WiRED-Armenia and other NGOs in Armenia. Our partnerships in West Africa include VEFIL in Liberia and DHHI in Nigeria. Both NGO partners have established training program that in 2024 have produced CHW teams.
Next year WiRED plans to not only expand partnerships but to unveil two initiatives — the first on January 5 — that will make WiRED programs and trainings more easily available and adaptable than ever before. We are excited to begin our work in 2025!
Last chance to donate to WiRED in 2024!
Please keep in mind that for 27 years WiRED has used your donations wisely with 95% of our funds going directly to our programs. With your help we will continue to provide vital medical information free of charge to underserved communities globally. Your donation is tax-deductible.
Here’s how to donate:
Donate online via PayPal or credit card on the WiRED website here: wiredinternational.org/donate.
Send a check to: WiRED International, P.O. Box 371132, Montara, CA 94037