(SENEGAL) CECS, one of World Renew Senegal’s partners, recently responded to calls from church leaders in Loul-Sene. The pastors and their congrega- tions wanted to get more involved in their com- munity and knew that health needs were great. So community workers Jacques and Abdallah went to Loul-Sene to help out in the organization of a viable local health committee; a group of people committed to improving living condi- tions in their community, supported by CECS.
The pastors and their congregations wanted to get more involved in their community and knew that health needs were great. So community workers Jacques and Abdallah went to Loul-Sene to help out in the organization of a viable local health committee; a group of people committed to improving living conditions in their community, supported by CECS.
The community workers first explained what a local health committee entails. Then they held a workshop where they used the following story [summary]:
“There once was a village where people called themselves ‘the fishers’. They spent much time defining ‘fishing’ and discussing new slogans and logos but they never went out to sea. They organized a ‘month for the fishermen’ and conferences to exchange ideas on fishing. They built warehouses, docks and classrooms to teach courses on fishing. Each year, some people persevered and obtained diplomas. But they did not fish.”
This story resonated with the participants. They had seen many organizations come and go that had organized activities in their town, such as literacy courses, mosquito net distributions, micro-credit for market trade and other good ideas. But the benefit of these activities on the wider community was unclear. So part of Jacques and Abdallah’s work was to explain how to plan develop- ment initiatives to get better results rather than simply focus on planning activities that have been done before and so seem to have a better chance of getting funding. The committees were trained to think about the desired results first and then plan out how to get there. Some members of the newly formed health committee had participated in other development projects be- fore and recognized the situation the fishing story described. “Had I known of this system for setting up projects before, my previous development activities could have been much more successful!” shared one participant.
Following this workshop, the newly formed health committee decided they wanted to achieve two main goals: improve the public health in their community and become closer as a community. In doing so, they believed they could make sure marginalized groups were not forgotten.
Jacques and Abdallah’s first steps were organiz- ing informative talks on malaria with members of the community, organizing an HIV/AIDS test event (always accompanied by information) and participating in World Renew’s adolescent health program, which focuses on the health of illiterate girls—a marginalized group at risk.
The CECS (Comité Evangelique pour la Coordination de Sante) is one of World Renew Senegal’s partners. It consists of three Senegalese Protestant churches that work together to set up and support local health committees in communities in smaller towns outside Dakar.
Esther Kühn
Program Consultant
World Renew – Senegal