Sofia, July 13-15 2015
From July 13th to 15th at the Forum hotel in Sofia BFPA and the National Network of Health Mediators (NNHM) held a joint training for health mediators from the municipalities of Belitza, Vidin, Muglij, Razlog and Yakoruda. The main sessions and discussions during the training were around topics as: personal hygiene, appropriate approaches and campaigns to motivate the cleaning and maintaining the good hygiene of Roma districts in the five municipalities, approaches for working with up to 10-year-olds for creating sustainable habits concerning care for the oral cavity, washing hands, proper nutrition. For the older ones the messages were about sexual and reproductive health, prevention of different infections – air transmitted, nutrition transmitted, blood transmitted, sexually transmitted, transmitted by insects and parasites.
According to the training teams of the two organizations the adequate approach are messages, specifically elaborated for each of the target groups. Nadejda Grigorova from RHI – Sofia–region shared the RHI’s experience about campaigns promoting the importance of hygiene, held in Roma communities in partnership with health mediators from the region. The idea is messages to be supported with visualization and easy to understand printed materials – the artist Elitza Atanasova will help us with that. Hopefully those approaches will be successful and that will stimulate a proactive attitude in the community towards maintaining a good health status and preservation of the environment. The seminar ended with presentations conducted by participants – as final rehearsals before the field intervention. Participants worked on sessions for three topics – teeth and oral cavity care, why it is important to wash your hands, nutritional habits and hygienic processing of foodstuffs. The next meeting under this initiative will be in September 2015.
