Impact of partnership for health promotion on rural women development

ABSTRACT

El-Tal El-Kibeer is one of the 4 districts of Ismailia Governorate, Egypt. Its community is a rural one with a long history of self development. At 1987, that community started a partnership project with Suez Canal University aiming to health promotion through community participation. Women at El-Tal El-Kibeer shared actively from the start of project. Young ladies were so enthusiastic in training and in performing many of the duties of community health workers as following up growth and development of babies of their village, sharing in surveys,etc. A class for training young ladies and girls on sewing, knitting, needle work, cooking, etc. was opened in collaboration with a NGO at one of the hamlets. That center is serving the whole district and would prepare young ladies and girls to be skillful wives who can earn money, from their work. A comparative study was done to evaluate the impact of different training programs on the knowledge and attitude of women community health workers. Young ladies who were trained as community health workers at different hamlets were interviewed, with another matching group of young ladies from the same hamlets. The study revealed that more community health workers identified of the concept health and all processes leading to health promotion. The most important indicator was that 81.5% of them expressed their active sharing in solving any health problem at their community compared to 45% of the other non community health workers of whom 35% mentioned that solving problems is the job of men