The importance of local ownership in malaria programs
I recently wrote an article for Monday Developments Magazine about the importance of community involvement and ownership in malaria prevention activities. Here’s the gist:
Isabel, a community caregiver in Zambia, loads bed nets onto her bicycle.
Too often, those most impacted by malaria are left out of the process and not empowered to help defeat malaria themselves. This is particularly relevant as the Obama Administration begins implementing its new Global Health Initiative, utilizing a country-centered approach. Such an approach has the potential to improve the effectiveness of global health programs by tailoring activities and funds based on the specific health needs in each country. However, if local communities are not included, the impact and sustainability of such efforts is questionable.
You can read more here (page 29):
http://www.scribd.com/MD-Dec09-Small/d/24597207
Have you seen the community-based approach work more effectively to combat a problem, here in the U.S. or abroad? tell us about it.
Tags: communities, malaria, prevention
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I completely agree with you re:End Malaria. Eradicating, or reducing it to the level that it no longer be a health problem/concern needs the complete involvement of the community, not just as recipient or participants of the project, but actually involved in the activities towards the desired goal. This has been illustrated in the “MASUVECCO Project” in Region 5, Philippines. In this project the community were actively involved in all the activities in early detection and treatment, surveillance, vector control, and health education on malaria.