Climate Change Training for Health Surveillance Assistants
The Ministry of Health (MOH) in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) organize frontline training workshops on Climate Change for Health Surveillance Assistants in all the three regions in Malawi with funding from UNDP and with support from UN CC:Learn. This training targets the District Health Officers especially the Health Surveillance Assistants build capacity of the HSAs who are the frontline staff that work directly with the communities for purpose of motivating, informing and assisting individuals, families and communities in the promotion and maintenance of personal and environmental health. The training workshops aims at enhancing their knowledge and improve their response to climate change.
Specifically, the training aims at achieving the following: • Ensure that Health Surveillance Assistants understand the basic science of climate change and its menacing impacts on livelihoods. • To enable HSAs understand key sectors that are impacted by climate change and how these impacts affect human health and wellbeing of the communities, • To enable HSAs link climate change issues to human health • To enable participants demonstrate knowledge of existing national and district mechanisms that address the climate change challenges at the community level • To ensure that HSAs understand the principal of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) related to their catchment areas.
The training uses adult learning approaches. Facilitators of the training make their presentations using a combination of power point presentations, plenary, group discussions and video documentaries in order to ensure active participation and clear understanding of the training materials by the participants. To create conducive learning environment, facilitators make a deliberate action seeking participants to express their expectations and fears so as to integrate them in the facilitation process. The training covers the following modules as outlined below: • Module 1: Introduction to basic climate change science • Module 2: Impacts of climate change on key sectors • Module 3: Climate change and disaster risk Reduction • Module 4: National and district Mechanisms for addressing climate change Module • Module 5: Effect of climate change on human health
UN CC:Learn, is a collaboration of 33 multilateral organizations with the aim to strengthen human resources, learning and skills development in Member States through country driven processes. It is included in the "One UN Climate Change Action Framework" of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) through the High Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP). The Secretariat is provided by UNITAR. The pilot implementation phase of UN CC:Learn in 2011-2013 is supported by the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC).