Christian agencies engaged with Primary Health Care

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Christian agencies engaged with Primary Health
Care

• Community Health Global Network members are
  feeding in to theWorld Health Organisations
  thinking Dec 07 and July 08
• Nick Henwood www.chgn.org

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• Presentation
• Christian agencies and PHC
• Themes
• Ideas
• Celebration
• A race through some CHGN project snapshots
• Preparation
• PHC re-launch, May 2009

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Themes

• Documentation
• Be explicit about faith
• Think upstream
• The role of national churches
• Thinking holistically
• Staff training for excellence in healthcare

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Documentation

• Both successes and failure
• FBOs need to win the respect of international
  organisations like WHO
• More funding could be channelled through FBOs

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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

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Think upstream

• FBOs should tackle the big issues
• Trade justicefood prices
• Violation of human rights
• God is concerned with justice!

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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

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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.

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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

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• Connecting health players
• Strengthening community-based healthcare in
  resource-poor countries

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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

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Some CHGN members projects

• 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

• HIV testing and treatment for HIV/AIDS

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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

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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

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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

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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

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• 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

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

PHCHealth for all
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• Member of family of agenciesInterHealth, 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 networks members
  appropriately
• www.chgn.org

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• Thank you from
• Nick Henwood