CHE = Community Health Education (and Evangelism)

We are blessed to have Eric and Shannon Wiederholt back again this year to teach the next part of CHE to our students.  This is the third year they (and David Crist) have spent a week with our students.

Here is what is happening this week, according to Shannon...

CHE Week At The Barefoot Doctors School

THEME:  Increasing Confidence Through Participatory Learning

One of the core values of Community Health Evangelism or CHE, is multiplication.  Students have shared that over the past year, the compost training they received at the Barefoot Doctors school is being shared and implemented in several of their communities. They shared that modeling composting at their own homes, made neighbors curious, learned how to compost rather than burn their food and agriculture scraps, and are now composting on their own.  Hearing this affirming story of multiplication was very special to the instructors, Eric and Shannon Wiederholt. 

Many students voiced that over the last year, they felt their confidence in sharing health information as well as evangelism had grown.  Stories like having people come from other villages for a small medical clinic and overnight stay provide opportunity to show the Jesus movie to unbelievers are so inspiring to hear. One person shared that she was thankful for the opportunity to put the financial stewardship training she received at Barefoot Doctors School’s theology week into practice.

Helping couples resolve marital conflict was a strongly requested topic for this years' training.  Students spent the day using a simple and reproducible tool called the problem and solution tree to look at root causes or marriage problems and the fruits of those problems.  They voted on the most important ones and came up with solutions to those problems.

Today’s requested lesson was on Diabetes and carbohydrate counting for meal planning.  Students had fun creating a menu for men and women, using simple and reproducible props that represented portion sizes.  Information on health issues like diabetes can be intimidating and that is why the students practice teaching the lessons to each other, taking turns and working through questions they have, making culturally relevant changes to skits as applicable. 

Healing the Wounds of Trauma Through Forgiveness, SODIS Water Purification, and creating a map of your community’s microenterprises will round out the week in the classroom.  On Friday, the students will go on a field trip to the ECHO Asia Impact center nearby. Deep Rice Bed Method of Pig Farming will be the main topic learned as well as seed saving.