Today we got to sleep in a little, which was very nice for all of us because of how early we had to be at the hospital yesterday!
When we got to World Hope, we spoke with a woman who works for early child development programs. She is the supervisor of 10 mother support groups, which is a group of women (about 15 members) who meet to advise and educate each other on health related topics. She says she visits these groups monthly to provide sensitization on different topics such as nutrition and disease prevention. She also gives refresher trainings to these women to ensure they understand the information presented. She told us that the CHWs select who is in the mother support group and the community members appoint who should serve as the leader of the group.
We are thinking that to get pregnant women to understand the importance of disease screening, we should target mother support groups. Women, especially pregnant women, will trust their community members way more than us or any ad. They will also be much more receptive to learning about UTI screening if it comes from someone they know and trust.
We are thinking of teaching the mother support leaders about the signs and symptoms of a UTI. Then, they can go to their group members and educate them.
After interviewing, we finalized all of our concept of operation documents. We organized them all into a single folder with the most update versions.
Team picture left to right: Hasson, Khanjan, Cassidy, Sage, Allieu and Naakesh
Later, we went to radio Mankneh and AMZA radio to see if they would be willing to run a health program on Ukweli. Radio is a good way to engage with community members in Makeni, so we are considering purchasing a time slot for an hour to help sensitize and introduce our venture. Both stations charge the same hour and 30 min rates, however radio Mankneh is a more community based program and is the oldest station in Sierra Leone. They also broadcast in 5 different local languages, rather than other stations which is just english and creole.
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