6-2
MAKING COMMUNITY EXPERIENCE A
PART OF TRAINING
Some people-centered programs have found ways to make interaction with the
community a key part of health worker training. These ways include:
1. Locating the training center in a village or community similar to those
where the health workers will be working. This needs to be done in cooperation
with members of the community.
Example: Project Piaxtla, in Mexico, has its training and referral center in a village
of 950 people. The old, mud-brick building used for classes is actually the
farm workers’ meeting hall. The village permits its use when it is not needed
for meetings. The fact that all the instructors are from that village, or nearby
villages, also helps bring the community and the training program closer
together.
2. Arranging for health workers to live, eat, and sleep in local homes during
training. This has many advantages:
• It brings local families close to the training program. The people take
responsibility for the health workers’ well-being, not just the other way
around.
• It spreads students out and mixes them in the community. This prevents
them from becoming a group apart, as often happens when students live
together.
• It gives the students a chance to exchange ideas every day with mothers,
fathers, and children. They can observe the customs, attitudes, joys, and
difficulties of the families. They experience the families’ problems and their
ways of solving them. At the same time, the families learn from and with the
health workers, as they bring home new ideas from the training course.
When the course begins, it helps if instructors hold
a meeting with the host families. Explain
the purpose of the training and ask the families
to take part in helping the health workers
learn. That way, the local people may actually
encourage the health workers to practice
teaching them and their children, and may
even offer suggestions and criticism. They
will take pride in helping prepare health
workers to serve other communities. So
learning goes two ways.
3. Home visits. Some programs make
regular visits to homes (once or twice
a week) an important part of health
worker training.