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GaneshAID is committed to support countries accelerating Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. Community systems strengthening is increasingly recognized in international commitments and normative guidelines. However, in many African countries, interventions to strengthen community systems remain insufficiently acknowledged, prioritized, or integrated in national plans and budgets (for either specific diseases or health as a whole).
Figure 1. Causes of insufficient CHS implementation
With Governments and development partners, GaneshAID designs new and optimized approaches with people and communities placed at the center of health services. We intensify engagement of all national stakeholders to initiate and or scale up innovations to address CHS and response bottleneck.
Figure 2. Key innovations to address CHS bottlenecks
Considering community engagement and empowerment as a core area of interventions, we provide technical support to involve people and communities in the design, planning and delivery of health and immunization services by:
Our interventions for community engagement are co-led by communities and ministries of Health, in the framework of integrated and people-centered health and immunization services. We foster the intervention management and delivery of health services such that people receive a continuum of health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, disease-management, health care services within the health system, and according to their needs throughout the life course.
Community Engagement covers a wide range of activities which requires the involvement of relevant stakeholders including government practitioners in some cases. At GaneshAID, we target community engagement through different approaches:
| People-centred and community-led approaches are championed widely – resulting in increased trust and social cohesion, and ultimately a reduction in the negative impacts of COVID-19 | – UNICEF, 2021
Community Engagement Support at GaneshAID focuses on:
(1) informing vulnerable communities,
(2) consulting them on how health and immunization services could best serve their needs,
(3) involving more communities on health problems, collaborating to build partnership, and empowering them to lead the way. Finally, communities are engaged in deciding for their own health, and they are empowered to co-lead a strong partnership with frontline health workers, and relevant stakeholders.
Community engagement is primarily about the practice of moving communities towards a better change through empowerment. Many different types of community empowerment approaches have worked to improve health services and health outcomes. In fact, most studies using community empowerment approaches has had a positive primary outcome.
GaneshAID develops powerful community empowerment models which include trained frontline health workers, community communication and collective action, ownership, and accountability of service providers, officials, and private organizations.
Our Community Empowerment strategies are based on robust partnerships between communities, policy makers, and health workers, providing feedback through results sharing with communities, channeling community resources to support programs, and promoting equity.
Key principles of our Community Empowerment strategies
Digital health during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the remarkable deployment of multiple digital solutions to cope with new challenges. GaneshAID’s health digital strategy supports the use of inclusive digital solution for community engagement to ensure that people can access the right information at the right time. GaneshAID’s health digital team develops solutions with the goal of having more communities participating in early detecting and preventing the spread of diseases as well as responding to the pandemic, including the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines.
GaneshAID digital solutions for community engagement
Community engagement involves encouraging community to adopt healthy behaviors and share ideas about how health services can cope with evolving health needs. GaneshAID’s digital solution strategy targets Low-and-middle income countries to empower communities and health workforce. Digital technologies offer exceptional opportunities to improve community participation, helping them meet the changing needs in health.
GaneshAID innovative activities target not only remote areas, but also urban areas. Our training modules provide comprehensive knowledge which informs urban community on how to live healthier lifestyle. Regardless of gender, age, locations, individuals from all communities can be equipped with the information about level of risks, treatments, and prevention of common diseases.
GaneshAID digital marketing for COVID-19 vaccines uptake
| On March 2021, there were 400 anti-vaccine accounts across the big social media platforms with over 60 million followers with many more people joining every day | Center for Countering Digital Hate.
As vaccines became available for the COVID-19, countries face with the challenge of vaccine hesitant and resistant communities. There is a pressing need to generate demand in groups that are either unaware, vaccine hesitant, or actively resistant to COVID-19 immunization. Indeed, any delaying or avoiding immunization will cost more and more lives.
| Vaccine hesitancy is the delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccination despite availability of vaccination services | SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy (2015)
GaneshAID’s Social Media Campaign
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Copyright GaneshAID 2017
