Issue
Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) supporting the Covid-19 response in Kenya need to be better equipped to engage in pandemic health responses, including through increased access to PPE and enhanced social protection measures.
How we are helping
This project will identify the challenges faced by CHVs during the Covid-19 pandemic, mobilise CHV leaders to advocate for increased access to PPE and strengthened social protection measures, and facilitate engagement with decision-makers on pandemic health responses.
About the project
The Kenyan Government responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with a series of measures including a national curfew and restrictions to meetings and gatherings. The government trained over 11,000 CHVs as a further effort to curb the spread of the virus.
CHVs play a key role in health service delivery at the community level, providing basic prevention and care services to communities, and reaching out to over 90% of households. CHVs are a key resource in the fight against the pandemic, bringing Covid-19 prevention messages to the community and supporting contact tracing efforts. The nature of their work makes them vulnerable to Covid-19, and they need access to PPE to carry out their work safely.
This project aims to contribute to the government’s Covid-19 health responses at the community level, strengthen resilience of CHVs to the current and future pandemics, and increase recognition of the need to enhance social protection measures for CHVs.
This will be achieved by:
- sensitising 1,000 CHVs from two counties in Western Kenya, Kisumu and Vihiga, on Covid-19 responses and identification of challenges faced by CHVs
- strengthening the capacity of 20 CHV leaders to engage in advocacy with policy-makers and decision-makers
- promoting regular dialogue between representatives of CHVs, the Ministry of Health, the Council of Governors, County Assemblies and the National Assembly Health Committee in order to ensure that CHVs can provide input to health responses and advocate for increased access to PPE; and strengthened social protection measures for CHVs, including health insurance
- supporting CHVs to conduct community mobilisation for pandemic response through home visits and community dialogues
Project Partners
OGRA Foundation is a Kenyan non-governmental organisation that implements programs aimed at improving health, education and development outcomes at the community level. Examples of current work include community home-based care for people living with HIV, HIV testing services, community mobilisation for behaviour change, tuberculosis case detection at the community level and during school health checks. OGRA Foundation works with CHVs and other frontline health workers at the community level. Over the years, OGRA has worked with CHVs to deliver various projects in collaboration with the Ministry of Health at national and county levels.
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