Our goals

We seek to offer the pupils and their mothers a qualitative education on health care issues. We’ve made of a school a venue for awareness raising on the questions of nutrition, hygiene and disease prevention. By teaching Afghan women and girls to take simple preventive measures and understand responsibility of their health and that of their family members, we aim to contribute to the fall of the infant and maternal mortality rates.

Organization

Three health education centers established by Afghanistan Libre in 2003 continue to function in each of the principal schools supported by us. These centers are not only a source of any kind of information related to health, but also venues where women and girls can freely gather and share.

Since their establishment, Afghanistan Libre has covered all the expenses related to the centers’ functioning, including educators’ salaries, the trainings, centers’ equipment and provision of material to beneficiaries, such as distribution of personal hygiene kits. Each centre regularly welcomes at least 20 women in the HEC of Malalai and Azrat Osman as well as about 30 in Khoja Lakan.

The topics

The topics discussed during the sessions are being elaborated by Afghanistan Libre working closely with the Ministry of Public Health. In general, our efforts have always been concentrated to provide Afghan women with knowledge on family planning and children’s vaccination. Recommendations to apply during pregnancy, child delivery and child care also form a basis of the trainings. However, particular issues raised by women are always being included into the programme. For instance, during the pandemic of the virus A H1N1, educators provided information on basic preventive measures.

Main topics discussed during the sessions:

Hygiene:

• Meal preparation (the importance of washing the hands and ingredients, clean water)
• Child care (teeth brushing, treatment of infected body parts, rehydratation of babies, advice given in cases of a flu, diarrhea etc.)
• Hygiene issues related to household (rubbish, sanitation etc.)

Nutrition:

• The importance of the variety of products, their nutritional value, product keeping, children’s nutrition needs according to their development stage etc.
• Recommendations to pregnant women: information about the menstrual cycle, nutrition, exercise, development of the fetus.

Each centre is led by a female educator trained in health care issues by our partners. Her role is to:

• Ensure the supervision of children’s health, their timely vaccination and registration.
• Regularly organise information sessions with schools pupils and local women.
• Create and regularly extend a professional network of health care specialists who would be of service if a need arises.