Careers

Description:

The goal of the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) project is to decrease preventable maternal and child morbidity and mortality.
It is based on three objectives which are:

1. Increase the capacity of community health service providers to support mothers and family members in adopting key maternal and child health behaviors.
2. Increase the capacity of women and family members to adopt key maternal and child health behaviors.
3. Increase the capacity of key actors and groups to strengthen community systems that enable the adoption of maternal and child health behaviors.

To achieve such objectives, Volunteers serving as Maternal and Child Health Promoters will train community health workers on the use of adult education methodologies, behavior change theory, motivational interviewing, and diversity and inclusion considerations for health education as a capacity building strategy. Maternal and child health promoters will perform one on one coaching to health workers and make sure that educational methodologies taught are adopted.

Volunteers in this project act as coaches to health workers to provide feedback on their performance based on pre-designed observation tool and feedback methodology. They will coach on small group training to mothers, house visits, and motivational interviewing. Together with health workers, volunteers keep track of educational outcomes observing and assessing the adoption of health behaviors on the part of women and family members that they educate.

As community organization and empowerment is key to promoting sustainable community health, Volunteers also work with the community at large to achieve objective 3 of the project. In this they link key community leaders and organizations to engage in campaigns, activities, and/or projects that enable the adoption of healthy behaviors. Volunteers use participatory methodologies to facilitate the assessment of community needs, linkage of actors and the actual execution of campaigns, activities, or small scale projects. Examples include organization of parades to promote better nutrition, workshops to empower women and girls, and small scale infrastructure that improve health services or family homes.

The project is designed with an emphasis on behavior change theory, community empowerment, and sustainability. All work performed by Volunteers within the project reflects this approach and is accomplished in collaboration with the community in which they work. A monitoring and evaluation system is in place to track project progress and outcome.

In addition to the tasks addressed above, Volunteers with more specialized experience often provide their perspective on the overall MCH project approach, and may be asked to lead workgroups and become members of the Project Advisory Committee after going through an application process. Health specialists have proven to add value to the work of Volunteers by proposing additional tools, methodologies and processes to better project implementation.