Christian agencies engaged with Primary Health Care

Community Health Global Network members are feeding in to theWorld Health Organisation’s

thinking… Dec 07 and July 08

Nick Henwood www.chgn.org

• Presentation– Christian agencies and PHC– Themes– Ideas

• Celebration– A race through some CHGN project

snapshots• Preparation

– PHC re-launch, May 2009

Themes

• Documentation

• Be explicit about faith

• Think upstream

• The role of national churches

• Thinking holistically

• Staff training for excellence in healthcare

Documentation• Both successes

and failure• FBOs need to win

the respect of international organisations like WHO…

• More funding could be channelled through FBOs

Be explicit about faith• Faith motivates

FBO staff and the communities they serve

• FBOs (and churches) can hold in balance both prayer and modern medicine

Think upstream

• FBOs should tackle the ‘big issues’– Trade justice…

food prices…– Violation of human

rights…

• God is concerned with justice!

The role of national churches

• Local churches understand their own contexts

• Local Christians are motivated to work for change

• Volunteerism…• Churches should be able to demonstrate

accountability, and be channels for funds

Thinking holistically

• Change and transformation, not from projects, but from love and mutual respect…

• Mandate from Christ to care for sick and provide good news for the poor…

• This mandate motivates workers to keep on serving the marginalised.

Staff training for excellence in healthcare

• FBOs have responsibility to train their own staff well…

• Excellent opportunities (eg Jamkhed) and training materials (eg Talc)

• Aiming to be models of excellence…

• Connecting health players

• Strengthening community-based healthcare in resource-poor countries

Some CHGN members’ projects• Self-sustaining models for

health care in rural India• Providing Teaching-aids At Low

Cost (paper and CD-ROM based)

• Grassroots solutions to ‘age-old problems’… empowering others, even at risk of losing our own identity

• UK - India linkages for church-based care of abandoned children in Mumbai

Some CHGN members’ projects

• HIV testing and treatment for HIV/AIDS

• Community based Primary Health Care in Africa, Asia and Latin America…

• Empowerment and employment, with drug rehabilitation in Iran

• Prevention of sexual abuse through schools’ programmes

• Reviving healthcare in Sierra Leone, 10 years after disruption by war…

Some CHGN members’ projects

• Community Care Centres for people living with HIV

• Training programme for Zambian clinical officers to equip them to serve in community hospitals

• Raising ARV treatment literacy…

• Assistance to displaced people squatting on government land in North India

Some CHGN members’ projects

• Primary Health Care outreach in Peru

• Community participation for rehabilitation of war affected health centres in DRG

• Hospital and community based healthcare in North-West Pakistan

• Working with agogs (grandparents) to address unhelpful traditional practices in Malawi

Some CHGN members’ projects

• Editing / publishing / distributing health journals

• Wholeness through supporting women health volunteers - with an emphasis on prayer and Bible teaching (North India)

• Aiming to demonstrate long-term commitment as they support health programmes in east Africa… capacity building for sustainability…

Engagement withthe big secular agencies…

• CCIH and sister agencies(like CHGN) have diverse membership…

• FBOs are increasingly being recognised…

• 40-70% in sub-Saharan Africa…

• So how can we develop our skills in representing our membership to multinational agencies?

• …learn from each other about wise engagement with USAID, WB, WHO…

FBO engagement in the run up to re-launch of ‘PHC plus’

• 30 years on from Alma Ata (plus a year to get organised…)

• FBOs as lead players in 1960s-70s (and also today)… But what is the “plus”?

• Christian players in DG’s office at WHO

• Invitation to CHGN to co-sponsor a consultation for PHC-related NGOs (23-25 July)… What an opportunity!

PHC…Health for all…

• Member of family of agencies…InterHealth, AFFIRM and CHGN

• Seeking to be a forum for faith-based and community-based health programmes to share good practice with each other

• Seeking to represent the network’s members appropriately

• www.chgn.org

• Thank you from…

• Nick Henwood