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Article added on 15 March 2010
Training
We continue to hold weekly training sessions in order to improve our own skills,as well as taking the opportunity to send team members for training courses/workshops/seminars that will equip us to better serve the people in our communities. As we enter 2010, we have been considering the role that ZANE is privileged to play in the rebuilding process of the lives of individuals, communities and in the nation of Zimbabwe. As a team we feel that it is necessary to become more focussed and develop our capacity as a training institute rather an organisation that delivers medical and nutritional care and conducts business and farming projects as we have done in the past. This does not mean that we will cease from taking care of the suffering and malnourished people in communities, but our focus will be slightly different.
The Foundations for Health (F4H) training programme is almost complete and the launch of the pilot training will be conducted in the first week of February. J*** has worked tirelessly on the compilation of this community health worker training manual in collaboration with the New Frontiers organisation.
This year we plan to train more community health workers using the F4H training manual. This training will empower local communities both urban and rural, to take responsibility for their own health. The emphasis in the F4H programme is on prevention of disease while it also teaches the recognition and management of common diseases. It will also enable communities to recognise healthy behaviours and strengthen these, and recognise unhealthy behaviour patterns and correct these. The ZANE team will continue to build relationships with clinical health care providers in each community and in the city in order to facilitate medical treatment for those who need it.
We have begun dialogue with the physiotherapists and rehabilitation technicians working with children with cerebral palsy and club feet at Harare Hospital.The medical team were continually encountering children with disabilities in the communities who had not received the correct management in the central hospitals. The problems appear to be a lack of knowledge and inadequate staffing at the central level. A ZANE staff member will be working with staff from the 3 major hospitals in the city in order to train them. The anticipated outcome of this training will be the early identification and appropriate management of children with disabilities before the conditions become irreversible and the empowerment of both hospital staff and care-givers to care for the disabled children.
We continue to conduct community-based health education workshops concentrating on HIV/AIDS education, Tuberculosis, nutrition and maternal and child health issues. One of our focuses this year will be the strengthening of care-givers of children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS by offering training and support in whatever manner we can. Our communities are home to many orphans and vulnerable children and there is an urgent need to come alongside those who are involved in caring for them.
We will continue to train people to follow conservation agriculture principles by holding community-based training sessions in Foundations for Farming (F4F). This will empower people to become self-sufficient in food and vegetable production and therefore improve the food security of communities where we work.
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