10-16
• Teaching assistants. Some programs invite some of their more experienced
village health workers to serve as teaching assistants in the training courses for
new health workers. This helps the assistants to improve their teaching skills
and gain a better understanding of the subjects they teach. There is no better
way to learn something than to teach it
• Meetings between different programs. In several parts of the world,
regional associations of community-based health programs hold meetings for
all member groups every year or so. These are especially worthwhile when
most of the participants are village-level workers and the number of outside
experts and program directors is kept very small. At the meetings, health
workers can share experiences and learn new approaches to meeting their
communities’ needs. By talking with others, they come to appreciate the
strengths and weaknesses of their own work. Above all, they do not feel so
alone in their struggles for change in their own villages.
• Opportunities to learn from other programs. Different programs are strong
in different kinds of health-related activities. For example:
Program A
Program B
Program C
Program D
village
dentistry
soil and crop
improvement
a wareness
raising
grain
storage
Suppose a program near to yours has developed special skill in dental care or
midwives’ training. And your own program has particular ability in food production,
or land rights organizing. It may be possible for health workers from different
programs to visit and learn from each other. Perhaps programs with special skills
can give short courses, inviting health workers from other programs. This sort of
educational exchange has already begun among programs in Mexico and Central
America.
INSTRUCTORS ALSO NEED SUPPORT AND LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES:
Village health workers are not the only ones who need a support system and a
chance to learn new ideas. We all would grow stale if we did not meet new people,
start new projects, and constantly try out new ways to work.
Most of the suggestions we have given for helping health workers to continue
learning also will work for instructors. In addition, some groups sponsor short
courses on teaching methods and materials for training health workers.
Perhaps the most effective way for outside instructors to renew their interest
and dedication to training village health workers is to spend more time with people
in a village. Living with villagers, sharing their daily needs and problems, fun and
frustrations, helps reawaken the spirit to work with people toward a healthier village-
and world.