On Wednesday 11 June 2008 the IMF team (Kevin Duffy – Chairman, Helen Lay – Finance Manager and Jemimah Kiboss-Kyeyune – Program Coordinator) travelled to Jinja to visit our HoH Community Health Project.
We arrived just in time to accompany Judith (the CHP Clinical officer) to a village in Kibibi where she was going to conduct training of Community Volunteer Workers. This was the fourth month of training for the CVWs and the topic of their training that day was HIV & AIDS.
It had rained pretty heavily in Jinja that morning and the roads were very muddy and slippery; at some point we had to leave our vehicle behind and walk the remaining distance.
When we arrived at the training venue (a home of one of the projects’ local supporters in the community) we found that none of the CVWs had arrived. However word of our arrival spread rather quickly and within a few minutes the CVWs started arriving at the venue carrying chairs, the white board and other material for training. Many of the CVWs carried files with notes neatly kept.
We were happy to know that Judith had a rather detailed and good training manual and a wealth of information to share. The CVWs began by presenting a Health Education and Promotion dramatization of the topics they had covered in previous trainings. It was interesting to see that they had internalised the information given to them through the training and ‘reproduced’ it in their own local language and in the most creative and entertaining (‘infotaining’) way!! This was evidence of the quality of their training. Judith mentioned that before attending the trainings many of the CVWs were not confident and could hardly speak in public (before a crowd) however as they presented their drama the CVWs exuded a great deal of confidence and mastery of the subject matter.
After the presentation, the CVWs settled down for their lesson. We were impressed with how the CVW were confident, showed a great deal of interest in the training and interacted with the trainer. The lesson was very interactive and the students took notes.
This training session was the first of two in Judith’s day. After this training she would travel some distance to another village to train more CVWs. We travelled back to Kampala, very satisfied and impressed with Judith’s work.
We are glad that the input of Hands of Help and International Medical Foundation is making a difference in villages in Jinja.
Helen Lay is looking into the financial records Judith gave her for an IMF internal audit.
You can download this visit report and additional photos by clicking here…
