This component seeks to promote equity and access to affordable and sustainable healthcare. Access to quality healthcare has continuously being a growing concern in Ghana and so we are focus on effectively engaging with duty bearers to bring improvement in their responsiveness to the health needs of the people.

4-Day Capacity Building Training for School Health Clubs and Teachers on Health Promotion












SCHOOL HEALTH CLUBS PROVIDES A PLATFORM FOR IMPROVING SANITATION AND HYGIENE PRACTICES IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES
Background
Poor hygiene and sanitation practices are common in many schools and communities in Northern Ghana, exposing vulnerable children to diseases that ultimately affect their school attendance and academic performance. Despite the fact that water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are part of a national guideline that encourages schools to have a school water, sanitation and hygiene (SWASH) or health club in place, in many schools these clubs have never been formed or are not actively meeting. In collaboration with Municipal and district authorities and school administrations, Peace for Life Ghana (PLG), under its Economic and Social Justice (ECOSOC) program, is implementing a wide range of activities that aim at supporting vulnerable populations to achieve social and economic progress. To that end, PLG in line with its WASH component is facilitating the formation of school health clubs across the program area to promote good health and hygiene practices among primary school students. To strengthen these health clubs, PLG conduct health, hygiene and sanitation education sessions from national WASH guidelines and other evidence-based school health curricula which is led by health teachers and a volunteer student . The sessions are delivered through discussions on various topics and delivery of key messages, games and plays, songs, and local posters designed with health messages. The club members and other students learn about personal hygiene and sanitation, particularly with regards to proper hand washing practices, environmental health and proper use of latrines.



Objectives
The goal of the School Health Club is to promote and maintain behavioural change with regards to good hygiene practices and the appropriate use and maintenance of sanitation facilities in schools. They help to introduce children to healthy habits that should stay with them through adolescence into adulthood and potentially reduce the spread of sanitation-related disease.
Guidelines and strategy
- It includes information of objectives of a SHC, who the membership should be comprised of, the role of the SHC and methods that can be used.
- PLG Ghana collaborates with the Ghana Education Service School Health Program Unit to form the clubs.
- Club members are trained as ambassadors both at school and in their families, promoting the learning of preventative health. They are expected to play an integral role in reminding the school management committees of their responsibilities for creating a positive school environment for health and learning.
- Health club members will teach other students how to properly hand wash; advocate for clean latrines and safe drinking water; and enhance health and hygiene messages across the school through direct participation in activities such as as peer-to-peer education, as well as arranging and following the latrine cleaning timetable.
- The health club will design and display pieces of art work with different messages on the school such as healthy environment and hand washing under the supervision of a health teacher and Volunteer student.



Increasing immunization coverage in West Mamprusi District (CRS/GAVI,Health System strengthing Project), 2017.
GAVI/CRS health Project
The Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health (GCNH) secured a project grant from the GAVI – Health Systems Strengthening funding window. The grant was to be used to support community mobilization efforts to increase immunization coverage in 40 selected Districts in Ghana where immunization coverage is relatively low. The Coalition sub-granted part of the funds to some of its member organizations who have demonstrable capacity, relevant experience and competencies to implement small scale and result based activities that will complement the efforts of the Ghana Health Service to achieve higher immunization coverage in the targeted districts. The goal of the project was to increase immunization coverage to 90% in the targeted districts including west mamprusi in the northern region of Ghana. The project also seeks to empower civil society for increased demand for health services at the community level. It was also expected to enhance collaboration among various partners for effective health service delivery at the community level. The project also aim at strengthening governance and health information management for improved health service delivery and to address issues pertaining to improving data quality to enhance evidence-based decision making, effective resource allocation and management. To this end, Peace for Life Ghana (PLG) was tasked to implement the project in four communities in the west mamprusi district.
Project Highlights:
- Sensitization of community leaders and men on importance of immunization and the need to support their families. This was done in four project communities namely Zangum, Nayoku, Silinga and Nabari.This was done through mini forums.
- The District Assembly, District Health Management Team(DHMT), Women’s Groups and Traditional Leaders were partnered to identify and select satellite points in the four project communities for project implementation.
- Logistical Support was provided to Satellite Sites for effective functioning of the centers. These included plastic chairs and benches etc.
- quarterly community outreach activities was carried out in all four project communities to educate people on the importance of immunization and the need to support immunization activities in the communities.

We have partnered with Ghana Anti Corruption Coalition(GACC) to sensitized people on the state of quality healthcare delivery in the West Mamprusi district through a project dubbed ‘I am Aware’. The sensitization was preceded by a research we conducted in the west mamprusi district on patient’s perception about healthcare delivery in the district.



The Country director of Vibrant Village Foundation Mr. Osman Mohammed during his monitoring exercise visited the Walewale Vocational Technical Institute to inspect a borehole that was provided by peace for life Ghana.

