Exchange Visits: A Key Tool within the Community-based Health Program

By: Radwa Hilou

PRCS’ Community-based Health Program is one of the main programs implemented by the Primary Health Care (PHC) Department. It aims at promoting health by engaging trained volunteers from local communities in Community Awareness Committees (CACs). CACs endeavor to disseminate specific health, social and environmental messages with a view to raising community awareness and improving health conditions in local communities.

Seventy eight CACs operate in 78 areas in Hebron, Tulkarem, Ramallah and Al-Bireh, Salfit, Toubas, Gaza, Khan Younes, Rafah and Deir el Balah Governorates, as well as in villages located to the West of Jerusalem. Approx. 1300 volunteers run these committees which act as an important link between PRCS and local communities.

CACs benefit from a number of specialized, enriching and relevant training courses offered by the PHC Department in order to enhance their skills. Moreover, CACs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip exchange visits as part of a “learning by doing” approach. These visits aim at exchanging experience and success stories, learning new skills, discussing achievements and challenges, and examining customs, traditions and concepts that need to be reinforced, as well as those that negatively impact health and should be changed. Exchange visits also help build and maintain contacts between Committee volunteers, mainly women. They enable female participants to shun their traditional role and to actively participate in their communities in order to bring about positive change and to correct unfounded health, social or psychological beliefs. 15 exchange visits have already taken place in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the third quarter of 2015.

Fatima Skeik, Acting Director of the PHC Department, said: “Visits between CACs which comprise 15% of male volunteers are one of the Program’s pillars. They have a positive impact on both visiting and hosting committees by breaking the isolation faced by many Palestinian women, raising their participation levels, engaging them in voluntary activities, boosting their self-confidence, and enabling them to meet volunteers from other CACs. Moreover, these visits promote community mobility through tours in the hosting community, allow a better understanding of PRCS’ services and build bridges with PRCS’ branches and local health centers. As a result, community resilience is enhanced”.

Implemented by PRCS with support from the Norwegian and Swedish Red Cross Societies, the Community-based Health Program aims at promoting community participation and initiatives through networking and building ties with health centers, PRCS’ branches and departments, and local community organizations with a view to increasing coordination amongst them.