From August to December 2021, the CIHLMU through its One Health DAAD additional funds has supported the der-CARE project. The PI was Dr. Million Tesfaye, PhD, who is a CIHLMU alumnus and a scientific collaborator for the OH project from Jimma, Ethiopia. The project was also mentored by Prof. Matthias Siebeck. In response to identified weaknesses in the respective health systems, the project aimed to support vulnerable communities in Ethiopia fight the COVID-19 pandemic effectively and improve mental health. This was achieved by first training Health Extension Workers (HEWs).
HEWs received training on how to educate each household member and enable communities to self-manage illness in times of the pandemic, increase health-seeking behaviors, prevent COVID-19 transmission, whilst improving mental resilience and psycho-social wellbeing. In addition to the above-mentioned competencies, the HEWs had the chance to upgrade their skill of communications, as the content was included in their training portfolio. They also sometimes supported the communities from a distance, e.g., via the telephone.
Overall, the HEWs were successfully empowered and enabled members of the community to be able to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. This was demonstrated by HEWs providing home-to-home teaching to household members for a maximum of 240 hours of education over 8 sessions, each session lasting a maximum of 30 minutes. During each session, supervisors had observed their educational sessions through structured tools developed by experts. The HEWs also reflected that the training provided to them was practical and enabled them to apply their skills in real-life settings. The project was also positively accepted by the health post, the community, and Jimma University’s (JU) top administration.
HEW-related projects are a potential area to further strengthen the JU- CIHLMU collaboration and there is a need for expanding the project, as only a few HEWs and households from the target population were included in this study, which was a pilot project. In the next phase, using lessons learned, the capacity development will be scaled up and modules will be integrated into existing structures using a One Health perspective.