2014 WWW AA Nash.L.

CONFERENCE: World Water Week, Stockholm

SIDE EVENT: Africa AHEAD & Stockholm Environment Institute 

YEAR: 2014

AUTHORS: Lisa Nash (Blue Planet)

TITLE: Sharing the Power of Community Health Clubs 

LINK: VIDEO PRESENTATION

SUMMARY:

Lisa Nash is Director of the Blue Planet Network which is a group of practitioners who share their successes and through networking aim to scale up the success stories. We believe   that it’s all about how you take learning and share it around the world. The challenge here is how to introduce the CHC concept and what is happening in Zim and Rwanda and apply it to different cultures and make it relevant. There are many ways of sharing learning – timely reporting of programmes and using real stories. We have heard how peoples lives have changed as a result of the CHcs. If this model is really as powerful as we think it is, it should be applicable everywhere. How do we use the power of the colleagues here to use this learning opportunity properly and take the ideas home and use them. We, at Blue Planet Network  are focused on building a global community and using the internet for connection  and communication and sharing knowledge with each other so we can collectively improve. We bring organisations together, with funders and donors. How do we make knowledge transparent. its all about what I learn along the the way, about measuring the impact. We want to scale up. How do you take a great idea and apply it around the world.  

Both ILF and Africa AHEAD are members of the Blue Planet network and we have peer reviews to assist other organisations to perfect their projects. We want to make all tools available to everyone. We now have a platform with 112 members in 27 countries who are collectively providing clean water and sanitation to 2 million people.

So what is the power of the CHCs? It is about the importance of community engagement and accountability, empowering people not only in terms of health, but  building  capacity for income generation. The CHC Model is adaptable and can  support multi-dimensional community needs world wide. We want this method of community mobilization to be used in schools as well as in the community. In Vietnam we are thinking of using the CHC model for de-worming pills in schools. We are talking to people in India about using a CHC in conjunction with the water committees and merge them together.  Blue Planet has a website which provides each project with its own page and links to other websites so information is shared. Africa AHEAD is also doing a tremendous amount to collect data and we share this to put this information out and share it around the world.