CHE Training - Day 3

After our morning time of praise and prayer...we watched a role play with Anne and Mary - this is a very effective method of illustrating a concept. Our first lesson of the day was "Spiritual Information Gathering" led by Ednah.
First Ednah explained that before starting a CHE program, spiritual and social information must be gathered because physical, social and economic conditions have spiritual roots. Then we broke into groups to discuss the spiritual and social observations made by Paul of Athens in Acts 17:16-34. We also answered the question; How did he go about learning about Athens? Every concept in CHE has a scriptural analogy or bridge.

Tea Time! This was a daily occurrence (in fact twice each day)...

This is Mary - remember the 'ice-breaker' in Day 1? This is Mary, my child, serving me tea!

And here is Alice serving bread - must have bread with tea! and not just one slice, but two...
Our next lesson, Gathering Information and Choosing the Best Community was led by Ann Marie Pruitt. She and her husband Lee have been working with Missions of Hope for several years...after a short role play we broke into groups...Ann Marie helped us see that as CHE Trainers we must first know what information to look for when evaluating a community, then where and how to get that information in appropriate ways.
...we were given a description of four villages in a region and each group was to decide which village would be the best to start a new CHE program, and be prepared to discuss why.
Lee, Ann Marie's husband then facilitated a session on "Entering a Community". After a short role play showing three people discussing the challenges of starting a CHE program, Lee led a discussion answering the following questions; How Can a Training Team enter a community to implement a CHE program? Why is it important to enter a community properly?

He explained the concept of Participatory Learning and Action where; Everybody participates, everybody learns and then there is action. When handled properly, the Committee discovers the needs of the community, the Comm with the help of the Training Team assesses the priority of the needs and then develops an action plan to prepare the community and move forward with appropriate projects to meet the needs and solve the problems.
Keith Ham (the last name is quite appropriate!) shared "Steps to Implement a CHE Program". He began by explaining the essential types of people needed for a successful implementation. First the STIMULATOR casts the vision - he/she has energy, visions, ideas, desires and initiative - clearly this person cannot act alone to make the 'dream' a reality. The INITIATOR is essential when he/she believes in the program and talks to key people in the community; chiefs, leaders, pastors, elders; about the dream as described by the stimulator. The LEGITIMIZER is a well-respected member of the community and is contacted by the first two. They share the dream with the legitimizer. Once the legitimizer 'buys into' the dream he/she talks to key members of the community to see if the community will decide to receive the CHE program. The DECISION-MAKERS plan and direct the program - these are the Committee Members who are chosen by the community. The DOERS are the Community Health Evangelists (CHE's) members of the community who are trained to implement the CHE program and help facilitate projects.
We got side-tracked for a short time while discussing the results of the US Election...this was Wednesday the 5th of November, which is when we learned of the final results...
Eddy and Keith are setting up our group activity...the strips of paper contain many of the steps to implement a program. There are three piles of papers...
We then broke into three groups to sort out the steps and put them in order...here are members of my group - this is Paul and Rebecca as they organize and discuss which comes first, second....
...another group - Anne, Alice and Jane also sorting and organizing...
Paul uses a big stick to point out the results of our group's efforts!
Keith making sure that the other group does not change their 'answers'!
We are discussing, as a group why our results were correct or incorrect...
Keith helps us change the order in a couple of places...
We all learned together the order of the steps and had much fun in the process!
Kelly with helper Bryan, teaching on the "Urban CHE Approach" which is quite different from a rural approach. After a role play (have you noticed a pattern? many of our lessons started with a role play or a story)...we discussed the obstacles or implications of bringing the CHE approach into the urban setting; people are busy, there is little permanency, people tend to be individualistic (as opposed to the interdependence of a rural environment), there is no prominent belief system, people are less teachable, the needs are too varied and diverse.
We discussed some ways the CHE can be started; work with influential people in the community, find and work with long-term residents, find people who want change, locate sub-communities (ie: mothers of small children). Some practical things we can do include; advertise with posters, etc., work with existing groups (ie: churches, schools), identify already existing organizations (ie: NGO's), hold rallies.

Below is Kelly with her chart! This is an awesome visual showing the progression from the Training Team to sub-communities, to combining the sub-communities into a larger community, to formation of a Committee, to selection and training of CHE's, to establishing home fellowship groups, to planting a church in the community.
Great quote from Eddy "Until the community transforms into a Christian Community, we are not done."

Robert leads us in the ever popular "Fishers of Men" song/activity. We sing the song and on every word starting with "M" the men sit down and on every word beginning with "F" the women sit down...
...the men do not want to be caught sitting when an "F" word (like Fishers) is sung and the women do not want to be caught sitting when an "M" word (like Men) is sung...much fun!
Hey, recognize the Mzungu in the middle? I am one of a Committee three trying to get information from a CHE who sees no need for keeping records of her activities in the community.
This role play was to introduce Bryan's lesson on, you guessed it, "Reporting". As a group we discussed the reasons why people either resist or avoid reporting, what could have prevented the problem, and why reporting is important. We also talked about what types of information should be reported and how often reporting is to take place.
Whew, this was a loooong day! filled with lots of information, fun, bonding and learning. And tomorrow is a national holiday - President Kibaki decided today (Wed the 5th) that tomorrow (Thu the 6th) will be a national holiday called "Obama Day"...but we continued our training, even though much of the staff took the day off and the kids did not come to school!