MHEN trains 1440 women trained in under-five immunization
Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) has trained 1440 women to monitor under-five immunization in their communities.
The women belong to the MHEN Mother Care Groups which were established under the Health systems immunization project in 2019.
Speaking with Nyasatimes in Mzuzu Monitoring and Evaluations Officer for MHEN Florence Khonyongwa said the refresher trainings will help to equip new knowledge on top of the knowledge which the women already have.
“It was a five year project and the funders of the project have added an additional year as such we thought it wise to do the refresher trainings before the project finishes because we know that this will not end here it will continue even after the project,” Khonyongwa.
Additionally she said they had some mother care groups whose membership dropped as such the refresher training will help the new members of the mother care groups to be equipped with the necessary knowledge.
Khonyongwa said their program did not leave men behind as they made sure that there is also male involvement.
“When we’re doing the trainings we also tackled the issue of male involvement, we trained the mother care groups on community sensitization and conducting door to door visits to track defaulters and as they conduct these activities we also encouraged them to not leave men behind,” she said.
She added that they have had some chiefs in some communities set bylaws to start attending to men when they attend immunization services during clinics.
Chairperson of Ching’ambo Mother group Joyce Simwaza said the refresher trainings will help the group to be active as some of the members dropped.
She said one of the challenges that they meet when they are in the communities is that some people are reluctant to take their children for vaccine.
However she said despite of the challenges the numbers of children taking vaccine have increased in the area since the establishment of the mother group.
“Before the establishment of the mother care group the population of people taking their children for vaccine was low but now the numbers have increased because now women in the mother care group are able to follow up on children who are taking vaccine in their community which helps the parents to be accountable,” she said.
The Health systems immunization project is a six year government project which is under Ministry of Health and has partners like Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN), College of Medicine among others. The project is funded by Gavi.
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