Project Name: Community Health Development Programme

Donor: DANIDA

Total Budget: Tk 18,83,282

Staff: 10

Duration: August 2003 to July 2005

Working Area: 10 villages of Matiranga Upazila

Participants : 231 households (1198 people)

Project Purpose:
To improve the community health conditions for socio-economic development of people in Matiranga Upazila. Specific project objectives were:
• to raise awareness about the primary health including malaria and other common diseases among the communities through training workshops and community consultation;
• to reduce the incidence of malaria in the rural areas of the Matiranga union by undertaking preventive and curative measures;
• to provide basic primary health care services in the rural areas of Matiranga Union through the establishment of Community Health Service Centre (CHSC).

Project Summary: TUS worked together with local communities in Matiranga, in an area mostly unreached by government health care facilities. TUS worked with the communities to raise awareness about primary health, including malaria and other common diseases, reduce the incidence of malaria through preventive and curative measures, and provide basic primary health care service in rural areas.

TUS facilitated training workshops and awareness sessions, encouraging communities, and especially women, to take preventative measures for malaria and other common diseases, such as use of mosquito nets and childhood immunisations. More than 230 women took part in these sessions overall.

TUS also supplied basic health care materials, such as mosquito nets and medicines, and ran a Community Health Service Centre to provide primary health care services. Staffed by paramedics and a doctor, the Centre provided primary treatment to the patients, and helped them establish linkages with doctors and hospitals in the case of more serious conditions. It collected blood for malaria parasite tests, and ran basic health education sessions. It also maintained health records of the villagers, and nutritional and growth charts of the area’s children. To ensure ownership of the Centre by local communities, TUS mobilised community leaders to form a Health Service Centre Management Committee, securing their participation in the Centre’s management and monitoring.

In two years, 3049 patients received treatment from the centre, accessing quality healthcare that may have been unavailable to them otherwise.

Reference Contact Details:
Lars Iskjar (Programme Coordinator)
Head of HRGG-PSU
DANIDA
House CEN-10, Gulshan
Dhaka 1212
Telephone: 88-29311