OKAHAO – The Centre of Earth and Appropriate Earth Technology (CESTAS) is working with Ministry of Health and Social Services on projects being carried out in the Omusati and Otjozondjupa regions.
According Francesco Falta of CESTAS the projects started in 2004 in the health sector and relate to economic development through training and financial support for community income-generation activities. Falta said the overall objective of the project is to contribute in the fight to reduce the spread of HIV/Aids and tuberculosis and to promote health care and economic assistance to people living in the Omusati and Otjozondjupa regions. “There are four kinds of training, all of them based on national guidelines for the provision of community health care and TB and HIV services for health volunteers, health workers, non-health workers and small business activities training for vulnerable people and people living with HIV,” explained Falta.
PLWHA is the acronym used to refer to people living with HIV/Aids. The main idea is to maintain and to enhance the good results achieved during the first phase of the project implemented in the period 2006-2009. Falta was talking during the handover of 300 community health-based care refill kits at Okahao last week Friday. He said the project has trained around 400 people from the Omusati Region since 2006 and in the past seven years spent around N$20 million. “We are supporting the transaction from a volunteer hall to the institutional activities of the ministry in particular within the category of health extension workers,” explained Falta. The aims of CESTAS will be achieved through the strengthening of the already existing health care services and the implementation of specific programmes in collaboration with local heath care authorities, he said. The project assists about 8 000 people in the Omusati Region, including TB patients (an average of 1 100 cases per year) in the Otjozondjupa Region.
The health care personnel in the regional sanitary districts and in the hospitals and clinics number 200 home-based caregivers (HBCG) who will all receive specific training on how to deliver proper home care to PLWHA. The volunteers will benefit from entrepreneurial skills training for more or less 200 people. About 2000 families from 20 villages with relatives affected or infected by HIV/Aids and TB will benefit from the training and financial support for SMEs implemented by the project. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between CESTAS and the Ministry of Health and Social Services provides for technical and financial support for the implementation of community home-based care in partnership with the Omusati and Otjozondjupa regional health directorates.
By Loide Jason