CHE CHARTS

Today the CHE (Community Health Evangelism) Training got much more specific to the Barefoot Doctor ministry.  The CHE trainers, David Crist and Joanna Geiger, customized their lessons for today and tomorrow so that our Barefoot Doctor students could get as much from them as possible.
Since they are already part of the villages they come from, some of the CHE methodology doesn't apply to them.  They may use it in the future when they go to new villages, but for now the scope of their ministry is pretty much limited to the medical expertise and care they will bring to the villages they live in.
CHE spends a lot of time in the TOT 1 program teaching the students how to go to villages they have never entered before in order to establish a new relationship with that village, then eventually help that village improve itself.  Here is a picture of the basic tenets of the CHE program.  Our students have been given a good overview of the CHE strategy.

This afternoon, the students started working together on the medical model of CHE only, and so they began listing then discussing the kinds of medical problems they have seen in their respective villages.  They had been asked to bring an item to class this morning that symbolizes one of the problems their village deals with all the time.  Here are two pictures of the things they brought in.  It was a great variety of things.

Then this afternoon they isolated the medical issues in their villages. They talked about preventive measures they could take to address these issues, and then they learned to use a chart that helps them figure out which issue they should address first.  As Barefoot Doctors they do both preventive and curative medicine, and the more they can do to prevent illnesses and injuries the less time and resources will be needed to address medical issues later.  Here are a number of pictures of the groups trying to figure out which issues tackle first.

The final pictures are two group pictures we took first thing this morning.  Please note the banner for the CHE program.

We finish the CHE training tomorrow, and Rick Astone will arrive to serve as Dean of the medical portion of our training.  Dr. Nilson will arrive this weekend, and he will serve as the Medical Director.  I will be heading back to the States tomorrow night.  Thanks for keeping up with our blog.  Please keep praying for these wonderful students!
Jon