DOCHAS Education Trust

Overall goals

To train the trainers in health education, teacher training, pastors training, teaching the women in the communities to run creches and bible studies, teaching them to knit and sew and care for the orphans. Teaching them to be self-sustaining.

Achieved: It is empowering the village women to pass on the knowledge they are learning to others, and so help to improve the general health and wellbeing of the population in that area. Women are now aware of the precautions to take against hiv/aids. Mothers are now attending anc and being tested and receiving treatment for hiv. Newborn babies are also being tested.
Basic health and hygiene sessions have raised their awareness of the necessity of proper handwashing technique, preparing their food in a clean area, keeping food covered, keeping animals away from village water pumps etc

Key UK Colleagues and Partners

DOCHAS EDUCATION TRUST

International Partners

DOCHAS EDUCATION TRUST WAS FORMED TEN YEARS AGO AND DOCHAS MALAWI WAS SET UP IN 2013 TO EVENTUALLY ENABLE THE LOCAL BOARD TO CARRY ON THE WORK THEMSELVES LONG TERM

Sustainable development goals

• SDG 1 - No poverty
• SDG 2 - Zero hunger
• SDG 3 - Good health and well-being
• SDG 4 - Quality education
• SDG 5 - Gender equality

Funding source

FUNDRAISING

Project origin

Two of the trustees were helping run a childrens holiday bible club in mozambique when a young man from nsanje in malawi asked them if they would meet with a group of people in nsanje who wanted help to improve their lives. They asked for their primary school teachers to be trained, their pastors to be educated and womens work in the community to help the orphans

Evidence of need

Two of the trustees were helping run a childrens holiday bible club in mozambique when a young man from nsanje in malawi asked them if they would meet with a group of people in nsanje who wanted help to improve their lives. They asked for their primary school teachers to be trained, their pastors to be educated and womens work in the community to help the orphans

Project areas

Health education and working with the village women

Project activities

We are now working in seven villages throughout Nsanje, teaching the village women basic health and hygiene, maternity care, care of the child, first aid, prevention of HIV/aids etc. We have two leaders in each village who we give intensive training to and they hold talks in villages and schools throughout the year to pass on their knowledge. The village women have been taught to knit and sew and they now produce jumpers for the orphans and uniforms to enable them to go to school

Changes

To motivate the village women to help themselves and through this to improve their lives.

Next steps

We are using ‘train the trainer’ model so the village health leaders will teach new leaders from different villages and the education will spread.
We are hopeful that the members of the Dochas Malawi board will eventually have the skills to organise and manage this project with supervision from Dochas education trust UK.

Challenges

All the teaching is done through interpreters so depending on the understanding of the interpreter the message can sometimes be affected.

Mitigating challenges

All the teaching I have done over the last five years has to be translated into the local dialect so the leaders can be provided with a manual each to refer to. This is a massive job and takes up a lot of time.

Partnership principles

• respectful
• organised
• flexible

Project gains

• leadership
• teamwork
• resilience