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Name of organisation: GOAL Ireland – North Sudan Programme
Tel: +249 (183) 464315 – 480328 – 462937
Fax: +249 (183) 472903
E-mail: healthpromotion@goalsudan.com (Connie) and healtheducation@goalsudan.com (Margaret)
Website: www.goal.ie
Contact names: Connie Shealy and Margaret Joan Bullen
About the programme
The Child-to-Child (CtC) programme started in 1998. All CtC activities are organised by the Health Promotion staff in GOAL’s three field sites of Abyei (central Sudan), Kutum (north Darfur) and Kassala (east Sudan), with technical support by the Health Promotion team in Khartoum. While activities in the past used to take place in both schools and in the community, the current GOAL North Sudan CtC strategy focuses only on out-of-school children. Due to the civil unrest in the Abyei area in May 2008, CtC activities were suspended, but it is anticipated that GOAL will re-instate the programme in 2009. The number of children currently participating and/or directly benefiting from the CtC activities are; Kassala = 210 children (130 girls and 80 boys) and Kutum = 122 children (87 girls and 35 boys). Funding sources include DFID, UNDP, Irish AID and USAID.
Child-to-Child activities
The focus of the activities for the children participating in the CtC programme is on health promotion amongst the children’s peers and within their respective families, with a secondary effect of these messages being disseminated within the community at large. Main health topics covered include: environmental health (including hygiene and sanitation) and malaria. Other topics covered are more specific and are identified in each respective community. The CtC activities are coordinated with other GOAL North Sudan programmatic sectors such as livelihoods, nutrition, water and sanitation for a more holistic approach to the programme.
Encouraging child participation
All activities are introduced through CtC group sessions. The children are encouraged to take action through stories, role plays, sketches, and games. The CtC step approach is used when implementing these activities; as GOAL has been using the steps as a way to help move away from the traditional methods of teaching and learning. As a result, CtC Facilitators spend approximately one month or more on only one health topic.
Involvement of schools and communities
In the past, GOAL had a couple of CtC groups situated in schools in the Kassala area. But many challenges presented themselves regarding the programme, for example the teachers who were facilitating the CtC activities began requesting incentives. Most of the schools had either two or three teachers; who had about three to five classes to teach. Eventually the teachers stopped facilitating CtC activities. In 2007 the CtC concept evolved into a Health Promoting School programme where the whole school community (pupils, teachers, non-teaching staff, and parents’ council). The CtC activities in the schools were never incorporated as part of the school curriculum but instead organised as extra-curricular activities. At the community level there are CtC groups for children who don’t attend school and these are being facilitated by GOAL staff (Community Health Promoters - CHPs) living in the respective communities.
In Kutum, the community based GOAL staff (CHPs) have been doing CtC activities with children in the communities. As Darfur is frequently unstable there are no CtC groups in schools but GOAL is planning to introduce the Health Promoting School programme in one of the schools this year.
Evaluation
Health Promotion field office staff do weekly supervisory and monitoring visits to the CtC groups and provide support where needed. Children and parents have not been involved in this process. The main changes brought about by the CtC activities are knowledge about common diseases in the community and practice on how to prevent them.
Delivery of Child-to-Child
The current strategy focuses on the Community Health Promoters (CHPs) who are from the communities where the health promotion and CtC activities are conducted. The CHPs are the CtC Facilitators for the CtC groups. The health promotion staff at the head office have been facilitating the trainings and covered the following topics: Introduction to CtC Approach; CtC Participation Table; CtC 6-Step; CtC vs. Traditional Learning; Characteristics of Children; Roles of CtC Facilitator; Active Methods; Relevant Activity Sheets; Story books and how to Use them; Developing CtC action plan.
Child-to-Child Materials
GOAL Health promotion staff in the country head office have been using the facilitators’ training materials/manuals and adapted them into training handouts on the above topics in Arabic. The CtC Facilitators have been using the CtC Resource Books (parts I and II) and the story books. Arabic versions of these have also been ordered from the Arab Resource Collective (ARC) in Beirut, Lebanon.
GOAL has developed some materials on raising awareness on intestinal worms: Worm buster poster; Worm buster stickers; Worm buster game board; and a Worm buster comic book (still in draft); all of these are in Arabic and we have also developed a power point training on worms as well. All these materials have been produced by a local publisher to minimise costs. Copies of these materials are available in templates in the GOAL office which can be used for reproducing more when needed. An evaluation tool has also been developed to assess the impact of the CtC programme by measuring the knowledge and understanding of the children in the CtC groups.
Date: March 2009
Source: Connie Shealy and Margaret Joan Bullen
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