Nursing scholar Nikita with a patient

Now that 2023 has begun, the nursing scholars have also started their studies! This year the nursing scholarship fund provided 11 nursing scholarships for new and continuing students from four countries.  

Empowering women and children through health, education, and advocacy is our mission. And providing scholarships for aspiring nurses is one of the many ways we promote development and access to health care in communities. Many of the scholars we support volunteer as community health workers in their spare time, providing home-based care or supporting health awareness camps for their community. Others serve as trainers when our community health worker colleagues gather to learn about current health issues and illness prevention methods in their area. All of our scholars are excited to continue their studies and help their patients and communities be healthy! 

We are thrilled to provide support for bright women and men who look forward to serving their patients and communities with professionalism and passion!

New nursing scholar, Albertina

We’ve wrapped up 2022 in a bow and are excited to share later this month just how much good has been accomplished in the year!

While we reflect on the year, there’s a very important group we’d like to thank - our monthly donors! Twelve times a year, over SIXTY individuals and families make the choice to empower women and children. Their efforts build up over the month, and in 2022 alone, our monthly donors have gifted nearly $70,000 to programs that will protect and uplift communities! From building up libraries a book at a time to building confidence in scholars as they pursue diplomas, we are so grateful for this group that keeps HealthEd Connect’s mission near and dear to their hearts.

To our wonderful monthly donors - we send a big, heartfelt thank you!

We are so grateful for the international community that makes our mission to empower women and children possible! From our board members and coordinators who provide direction, to our supporters who provide the tools that build change, to our school and community health worker colleagues who pave the road to brighter futures, this team changes lives in big ways!

Orphans and vulnerable children have access to education and nutrition, families can gather and be uplifted at community centers, and women can protect their children through weighings and practices taught by community health workers. We send love and thanks to each of you for investing in advocacy, health education, and learning opportunities that will raise up communities and future generations!

Happy girls at the community center

In the Kikungu village of D.R. Congo, there’s great excitement! After a generous gift of land from the chiefs, the Wasaidizi health workers and Kikungu community members joined together to build a community center to serve the children and mothers of the area.

After an traditional groundbreaking ceremony, the group encountered their first major obstacle: the truck hired to transport bricks to the site could not pass over the dike due to heavy rains. Seeing that this could mean significant delays in construction, women in the community volunteered to carry the heavy blocks! One woman would bend down while others would stack the blocks on her head, and then walk nearly a mile to the site where volunteers would help to unload them before doing it over again.

Thanks to their hard work, the community center walls went up in a matter of days, and now the roof is being framed while the floors are prepared and the outside of the center is receiving its first plaster coating. All of this has been accomplished in just a few short months!

One of the project coordinators, Musans, wrote: “The Kikungu center is an event of the century…[The community says] a miracle is done in Kikungu… to show their joy, everyone who visits the works contributes with his strength…the children, young people and parents.”

Community centers like these are only possible thanks to teamwork from coordinators, community members, and supporters like you! To see an abbreviated version of how this project has progressed on-site, watch our Youtube video here. You'll be amazed! 

Kasompe students patiently waiting for their meals

It’s an exciting time for our sister schools in Zambia as they celebrate a successful school year completed! Early in the morning, the Kafwa and school cooks join together to cook a very special meal for the students. Nshima, rice, meats like sausage or chicken, veggies, and special sweets are all on the menu, and take several hours to prepare.

The excitement, gratitude, and joy on the student’s faces make the hard work worth it! The children are very happy, and can take the leftover food home to their families to enjoy. We are so proud to support the teachers, school boards, and kafwa that make each school day an opportunity to educate and nurture.

Special days like these are made possible by you, friends! Thank you for blessing others generously, and uplifting health care, education, and advocacy for orphans and vulnerable children at our sister schools!

Students happily saying “End of year party”!

Thresah, Kafwa community health worker, excited about the latrine development in Mulundu, Zambia

How often are we grateful for our toilets? If you have one, it may be easy to overlook how important it is to your daily life. However, 3.6 billion (yes, with a "b") people do not have access to safely managed sanitation.* Without safely managed sanitation, our health, environment, and dignity all come into jeopardy. Time and hard work are of the essence if we want to protect each other and meet goals to have toilets for all by 2030.* (*World Toilet Day)

HealthEd Connect includes sanitation education in community health worker training, and we're grateful to support and partner in efforts to provide access to safe sanitation systems in communities. In the rural area of Gorkha, Nepal, Ramprasad has built 31 latrines with the help of the families who will benefit from them. Their new access to safe sanitation facilities is cause for community celebration! At our partner school in Kasompe, Zambia, the new ablution (toilet) block is completely finished and in use thanks to a Rotary grant focused on WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene) in schools. And in Mulundu, Zambia, a latrine is being built next to their new community center. The community, and the environment, is healthier because of these sanitation facilities.

So, today we celebrate toilets! Moreover, we advocate for the importance of effective sanitation education and systems to maintain good community health.

Facilitators (left to right): Ramprasad, Nikita, Pinkey, Pabitra, Sara, and Sangeeta

Last week, the volunteer community health workers from Gorkha, Rai village, and Kathmandu, Nepal, gathered for training! Coordinator Pinkey helped to facilitate, joined by site coordinator Ramprasad, site coordinator and professional nurse Sangeeta, and nursing students Pabitra, Nikita, and Sara. This team of six helped to refresh the volunteers on WHO community-based care practices and led a new training about women’s health. The facilitators also explored topics of aging populations, pre and post-natal care, and the current Dengue fever crisis affecting Nepal. A similar training will take place next month in Biratnagar, so the volunteers in that area can also benefit from these classes.

Seeing this partnership of volunteer community health workers and professional (or future professional) nurses is exciting! This is empowerment and advocacy in action; local trainers like Ramprasad, Pinkey, and Sangeeta speak and understand the local language, culture, and issues, and they are preparing the next generation of trainers like Pabitra, Sara, and Nikita by involving them as facilitators!

For a decade now, UNICEF has been celebrating the Day of the Girl to promote issues that threaten girls’ rights, opportunities, and safety (UNICEF). The COVID-19 pandemic and global warming have hindered advancement and undermined previous successes made in recent years (World Economic Forum, All Africa), and now we must try to regain ground and work to close the gender gap. UNICEF’s goals for 2022 to 2023 include:

• Supporting the leadership of adolescent girls

• Increasing resources for and investments in adolescent girls

• Improving access to and uptake of inclusive adolescent girl-centered services

We are proud to have frameworks in place to support these goals! The Kafwa health worker volunteers, along with invested teachers at our schools, are involved in initiatives that advocate for orphans and vulnerable children, with particular sensitivity to the rights and protection of girls. The weekly Girls Achievement Program (GAP) for girls in grades 5-7 provides a safe space to learn about their bodily development, the importance of staying in school and avoiding early marriage, as well as learning life skills. Our high school scholarships for girls help to further their educational journey. And starting last year, two GAP high school graduates were awarded our nursing scholarship, preparing them for a rewarding career!

We are grateful to our supporters who make these programs possible. By continuing to find new ways to empower girls, we are preparing the next generation of empowered women!