Selecting Health Workers,
Instructors, and Advisers
2CHAPTER
2-1
WHO MAKE THE BEST HEALTH WORKERS?
SHOULD HEALTH WORKERS BE FROM THE VILLAGE OR
COMMUNITY WHERE THEY WORK?
Many health programs, large and small, agree that it is important for health workers
to be selected from the communities where they will work. But their reasons differ:
TWO EXPLANATIONS FOR WHY IT IS BETTER THAT HEALTH
WORKERS BE FROM THE COMMUNITIES WHERE THEY WORK
The ‘expert’ with little
community experience:
Persons living and working
in the community:
Theory has it that community health
work is easier for the local person than for
an outsider, because people know and trust
him. And he knows the community.
Experience shows that at first it is often
harder for the local person. But in time,
health workers from the community can do
more to help build people’s self-confidence
and self-reliance.
There is an old saying: No one is a prophet in his own land. A villager complains,
“What does Mary, the health worker, know? I remember her as a skinny little girl!”
Such distrust in their own health worker reflects people’s lack of confidence in
themselves: “How could one of us understand new ideas or master new skills?” This
lack of self-confidence is especially great when it comes to health care. Most people
believe that modern medicine requires mysterious knowledge that only “strangers
better than ourselves” can master.