SAVE THE CHILDREN

After years of improving health in rural communities, Save the Children is undertaking an implementation phase for its Village Health Workers Program (VHWP) aided by AusAID.

Save the Children trains and support Village Health Workers (VHW) to treat common health problems and also build and maintain aid posts. It has been supporting the Ministry of Education to implement VHW Program since 1998.

A main issue of the inception phase is conducting community Aid Post Catchment Mapping, which aims to reach over 200 aid posts in Vanuatu.

The National Coordinator of the VHWP, Caroline Hilton, said the program would start in Shefa and Penama Province before Malampa, Sanma and lastly Torba.

During the duration of the inception phase, the Shefa and Sanma VHWP team would be sent out into the islands in the first nominated provinces to collect information regarding the following:

Aid post location including number of communities and households, distance to formal health facility; demographics of catchment populations; availability and options for communications network coverage; type and functionality of aid post management structures; type and regularity of services provided by VHW; Recent activity of the VHW; attitudes and practices relating to the aid post and service offered; attitudes of communities regards to health seeking behaviours; and physical structure and condition of the aid post and inventory of equipment.

Six VHWP have been recruited earlier February this year who have undertaken a program and organisational induction in Port Vila where the time was used to plan in detail the Aid Post Catchment Mapping.