Lodwar- August 29, 2025 (Public Communications and Media Relations)
Supported by Amref-Global Fund and World Relief Kenya, the training targeted community health providers from Lokiriama, Loima, Turkana North, Turkana South, Turkana East and Kibish sub-counties.
Over 270 new and previously missed Community Health Promoters and Community Health Assistants from Namoruputh, Kaitese, Lodwar, Lokichar, Lokori, Lowareng’ak and Kaikor have benefited from a 10-day technical training on basic community health modules. This was guided by the Kenya Community Health National guidelines.
These healthcare workers learned how to identify TB, Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Nutrition, WASH related-diseases, neglected tropical diseases, and non-communicable diseases early. This is in addition to leadership, advocacy, social mobilisation, and community engagement skills.
The Director for Community Health Services Dr Joseph Lolepo reiterated that the CHAs and CHPs are key players behind the achieved success with reduction of disease prevalence burden, and improvement in seeking health behaviour within the communities.
“I want to encourage you to be at the forefront in making sure health services have reached all community members. This will enable us to achieve goals of primary health-care coverage,” he said.
He also called on them to harness the required expertise in order to identify cases early, influence the community through public barazas, increased household visits, and medical outreaches.
“We are pleased as a county with the commitment of CHPs and CHAs to ensure everyone in the community has been reached in terms of medical services delivery. We will look to intensify these trainings to empower our health drivers at the grassroots level,” he said.
Senior Head-Community of Health Services Division Dr Bob Angwata assured the team that the national and county governments and World Relief through Amref-Global Fund partnered to ensure technical support supervision have been enhanced and delivered accordingly.
Dr Vivian Janet Mbugua, Community of Health Services Division shared that the basic modules training will enable the team to tackle basic health gaps on malarial preventive measures, TB contact tracing and treatment of defaulters, Kalazar, Diarrhea and malnutrition cases in the community.
According to Margaret Lokaran, a CHP from Akataatarong’ot village, St Daniel Comboni Lokori outlined that they have earned useful knowledge on the use of scorecard, understood coordination process of health sevices, required advocacy on various health issues among others.
She added that they have also been equipped with the tools such as blood pressure machine, thermometers, and blood sugar test kits crucial for enhancing early identification of suspected cases.
Subsequently, with adequate information on how to deliver basic health services in the community, CHPs will be able to improve access and provision of health services.
Participants also included facility-based healthcare representatives.
