The spread of Competence
Two women have brought the added value of this approach to the existing strategies in the Gambia : Mrs Adama Jagne Sonko, Deputy Programme Manager in the National Malaria Control Programme and Miss Marie Chorr, NSGA Project Manager. Both of them attended the Malaria Competence workshop in Mombassa, in 2005, and both were convinced that the Self Assessment tool was relevant to their work.
Once back in The Gambia, they started to use the Competence approach within their own organisations, and then in a first community, Sohm. A few months later, thanks to funding from the AWARE, they trained 30 facilitators : regional health staff, nurses, teachers, NSGA staff members among others. During the following two years, these facilitators implemented the Malaria Competence approach in three of the six regions of the country : 16 communities in the Western region, 15 communities and 15 schools in North Bank West and North Bank East Health Regions.
In each village, they started by talking with the Alkalo (village head) to give him information and ask for his consent, which he always gave. Then, they started to help the Village Development Committee to self assess its competence in Malaria. There are about 20 members in such a committee, each of them representing a group of influence in the village: Alkalo and elders, religious leaders, heads of women and youth groups, etc.
After that, the NSGA facilitators did the same with several other groups and persons :
- The Traditional Communicators.
These are women who have had difficulties in having children. They form a distinct group and they specialise in entertaining the community. They perform in various ceremonies because of their social beliefs regarding infertility. They are griots like and have a special responsibility to transmit the Alkalo’s decisions to the population or any other information to be transmitted across the village. They also bring humour to a variety of village ceremonies.
- The local drama group (many villages have one).
- The village health worker. A community member who has received some basic medical training
- The Traditional Birth Attendant or local midwife (who has been trained to help give birth to the third and subsequent children in a household). .
The Key Village Community Health Nurse, who is in charge of ten villages, is integrated into this process.