sexual health – Voices on the Border

ECHO El Salvador has expanded it’s reach and is wrapping up its first training session for educators and health promoters in the department of Morazán.

Maritza and Evelyn; our local coordinators

With the help of a great local coordination team and support from from both the ministry of health and education, we were able to compile an impressive list of participants who have been coming together every saturday to receive the training courses from the team of experts from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

We learned a lot from our work down in the Bajo Lempa which prompted us make some changes to the program here in the East. For example, during our Morazán conscription, we made sure to invite not only teachers but their directors as well, so that once the training is over the school teams will have an easier time planning and replicating the classes in their respective institutions.

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We also hope to have greater success with local capacitation in the communities, which is why we invited Daniel Perez, Morazán’s health promoter supervisor, to attend this first training session. Not only did he accept but has also offered to assist us in the coordination and monitoring of his team once they are on the ground and imparting classes.

In the Bajo Lempa, we trained 60 participants from six different communities and in Morazán, a total of 75 participants from 16 municipalities will receive training.

Stay tuned to see their progress.

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News Highlights, Quarterly Report

Our First Quarterly Report of 2019

April 17, 2019 voicesontheborder

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education, Public Health, Sexual and Reproductive Health, youth

Evaluating the ECHO Model in the Bajo Lempa

April 8, 2019April 8, 2019 voicesontheborder

The training portion of Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) came to an end last month with the second and final session of Bajo Lempa participants being certified as Sexual and Reproductive Health educators by a group of medical professionals from the University of New Mexico. In total, 41 teachers and 17 community health promoters participated in the program.

Over the last two weeks we had the pleasure of hosting Nutritionist, Grace Palm and Gynecologist, Hannah Palm; the two health education consultants from UNM. Since the beginning, these two young doctors have showed nothing but dedication and proved vital in the development of ECHO materials and as facilitators during the video trainings. They came to visit the communities, conduct in-person focus studies and sit in on some of the classes being replicated during their stay.

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Two groups of teachers, one group of health promoters and one group of school administrators participated in the focus studies where conversations were constructive, collaborative and full of ideas for the future. The classes they observed were well prepared and well taught and most teachers adapted ECHO’s methodology to fit their own group dynamics.

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Jose Acosta, VOICES’ director expressed during the final evaluation with school administrators, “If this proves a successful method to adequately capacitate those who’s role it is to impart such programs, the goal to ultimately implement the ECHO model into the education curriculum can be realized.