On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we held a Community Health Promoter Training for six of the local villages surrounding the clinic in Gatineau. Two Health Promoters were chosen by each village to attend the three-day workshop. We as students were also very excited about the start of the training, as we had put in a lot of time and effort making our lessons plans. We had began drafting our lesson plans in Baltimore, and refined them with the help of Dr. Wolf and Gemi once we arrived in Haiti.
Upon our arrival to the clinic we gathered together, promoters, nursing students, and members of Dr. Wolf and Cherlie’s team. After an introduction by Dr. Wolf we dug in! Amy, Nico and Caitlin were up first! Day on covered germ theory. (Everything you need to know about germs!) We emphasized that germs can be found in the water, and can be transmitted by hand-to-hand contact. For dramatic effect we used glitter as our pretend germs. It was amazing to see how fast the glitter transferred around the group- even after the activity was over! We also practiced hand washing, and taught a song we wrote in Kreyol about the times when to wash our hands.
Lave, lave, lave men nou
Wash, wash, wash your hands
Lave men nou chak jou.
Wash your hands each day
Avan w manje, apre w twalet,
Before you eat, after you use the toilet
E nou va gen santé.
And you will have good health.
On the second day of training we all gathered to practice hands on knowledge about treating water, building Tippy-Taps (a device that can be built for hand washing) and the use of make oral rehydration solution. Heather, Tristin and Emily H. lead the day’s activity. Everyone enjoyed getting a chance to move around and practice making a Tippy-Tap and teaching others how to use it. We even got some people watching us to wash their hands with the Tippy Taps!
On Friday Emily D. and Megan wrapped up any lose questions that the promoters had and let them practice teaching one other. Each promoter picked a poster that corresponded to the booklet that they were given (thank you CAWST) and taught it back to their small group. We ended the day by celebrating the promoter’s accomplishments we presented them with t-shirts that they can wear in their communities as well as hats, bags and toiletry kits.
The training program was an amazing experience. The promoters were deeply invested in bringing knowledge and change to their communities. We also learned quite a bit from the promoters. We ended the day with snacks and passing/kicking around a soccer ball under the hot Haitian sun.