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After receiving training from ACDI/VOCA, 45 members of community health action teams (CHATs) conducted Tumpukan Na!, or small group action sessions, in Sibutu Island in Tawi-Tawi, to educate mothers and children on immunization, hygiene and nutrition.
The sessions corrected health-related misconceptions through culturally sensitive explanations in order for health workers to provide immunization, vitamin A supplementation and deworming services to children. As a result, 77 children who missed their regular immunization schedules because of prior caregiver resistance were fully immunized and 144 pregnant and lactating women were given iron folate after their concerns were addressed. Almost all (99 percent) of the 12- to 71-month-old children were given vitamin A, increasing the health workers’ rate of success from last year’s 98 percent.
The CHATs’ efforts served as an on-the-ground complement to the audio plug of the Secretary of Health of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which called on stakeholders to provide child health support. The plug was played during every Tumpukan Na! and during the weekly broadcast of the health office’s radio program, “The IPHO Hour.”
ACDI/VOCA implements the USAID-funded Sustainable Health Improvements through Empowerment and Local Development (SHIELD) in Tawi-Tawi and has trained 96 CHAT members from 16 villages throughout Tawi-Tawi to conduct Tumpukan Na! child health action sessions.
To learn more about SHIELD, click here.
