Last week, the Missing Billion Initiative, Lwala Community Health Alliance, and SCOPE Impact kicked off the first phase of a community health worker (CHW) training project to improve disability inclusion in healthcare.

This project aims to improve care delivery for people living with disabilities by equipping community health workers with the knowledge and skills they need to provide inclusive, quality healthcare.

Leveraging SCOPE’s human centered design process, Lwala’s extensive local networks, and the Missing Billion Initiative’s existing expertise in disability-inclusive healthcare and training, this project is designed to be both community-driven and scalable. It is designed in multiple phases:

• Discovery – expert interviews and meetings with key stakeholders (e.g., CHW, people with disabilities, local government officials), and workshops with community health workers to understand needs

• Pilot – a contextually-tailored MBI training will be delivered to  about 400 CHW in Migori, Kenya, leveraging a train-the-trainer approach

• Evaluation – in addition to standard pre-and post-training knowledge tests, we will conduct long-term follow up with CHW to understand impact and use of the knowledge and skills learned in the training

 This project is taking place in Migori, Kenya, where the partners will meet this week to begin the discovery phase of work.

One of our advisors shared why this collaboration is energizing, “This project is very important and it is coming at a critical time. I feel that this project might  usher in what I will call a paradigm shift so that in the future we might stop talking about "inclusion”. Inclusion means that there are people that are more privileged and have more rights than others.  We can reach a point where we are talking about justice not just inclusivity. Justice indicates people have equal rights to access all services.”

Another colleague from Lwala shared, “Work that you are doing here can progress international work and can be replicated,  it will really help the broader community.”

As the project continues, the Missing Billion Initiative and its partners will share updates on social media so please get connected on Linkedin. We would love to hear if you are doing similar work or have interest in funding/collaborating as we look to scale up.

This project was made possible by a generous grant from the Bayer Foundation.