Community Center for Lifestyle Excellence in Malawi

Health care closer to the people

Diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart
disease, and stroke were rare in Africa until recent decades. These
noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are now striking hard in many countries
in Africa. Most are ill-prepared to cope with this challenge because
their resources are still focused on the communicable diseases that
remain major threats to health and well-being.

16 million people die prematurely every year globally due to NCDs. Emphasis on treatment of NCDs alone has not really reduced its global impact. In Malawi NCDs account for 28% of all deaths in adults. Malawi has few places, normally, it is in a hospital setting, where people can get information on health living.

Recognizing the magnitude of this challenge,  Community Centers for Lifestyle Excellence in Malawi will:

• Train community health workers to deliver health promotion materials for NCDs, detect, manage non complicated NCDs or refer NCDs patients in the community.
• Conduct research to determine what approaches to strengthen healthy lifestyles will work best in Malawi now and in the future.
• Train Community health workers the principles of lifestyle excellence so they will become teachers and models of healthy lifestyles in their own communities.
• Teach the principles of healthy living in schools, churches, and other community organizations.

Community Centers for Lifestyle Excellence will allow community health workers to focus on mitigating risk factors of NCDs like tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, inadequate exercises, unhealthy diet, and indoor and outdoor air pollution.  This will help to prevent and control noncommunicable diseases. Thus, the centers will build the capacity of community health workers to promote prevention through behavior change. It will reduce the economic burden and empower individuals to live healthier lives. This will lead to prevention of premature deaths.

Community Center for Lifestyle Excellence is a process for solving noncommunicable diseases in undeserved communities. The center shall establish a model garden to offer gardening and nutritional instruction classes to teach community members why strong plant-based eating patterns promote health. Plant-based meals are a major foundation for wholesome living and prevention of NCDs. The nutritional class shall also emphasize the importance of minimizing sugar and highly processed fast foods that are major causative factors in NCDs. A model garden with gardening and nutritional classes could cut down the risk of NCDs by 60-80 percent, according to cutting edge nutritional research.

The Community Center for Lifestyle Excellence shall be sending short messages to clients mobile phones related to medication adherence, diet, physical activity and review dates.

The center will establish a model garden to show community members best methods of gardening and ideal kinds of vegetables and fruit to grow in their own gardens.

Train 50 community health workers to deliver health promotion materials for NCDs, detect, manage non complicated NCDs or refer NCDs patients in the community.

Collaborate with one other organization to conduct research to determine what approaches to strengthen healthy lifestyles will work best in Malawi now and in the future.

Train 50 Community health workers the principles of lifestyle excellence so they will become teachers and models of healthy lifestyles in their own communities.

Teach the principles of healthy living in 5 primary schools, churches, and other community organizations.

We will start in one district serving 6,000 people in the first year and scale it up to three more districts in five years serving a population of over 30,000.

In five years, we will create a network of community Centers of Lifestyle Excellence that would be connected to universities with established academic Centers of Lifestyle Excellence. Ultimately, a university-nourished network of Centers of Lifestyle Excellence will spread across all of sub-Saharan Africa. This kind of vision has the potential of making significant improvements in community health all across Africa.

The population will access the services at the center by walking in to get needed information. Staff and volunteers will also be conducting community outreach every quarter to reach out to people who can not travel to the center. We will also be providing rehabilitative services at the center and during outreach to clients with chronic NCDs.

The center's model garden combined with a weekly gardening class will do a great deal to reach more people and strengthen nutrition levels in the community.

Currently we are working with 20 community health workers at community level, who serve people of all ages who need NCDs information and services. They do home visits to disseminate information on prevention and control of NCDs. They link NCDs clients and patients to nearest government health centers for proper management.

We will be serving 6,000 people in the first year through community outreach and in services to people who need NCDs prevention and control services. In three years, we will be serving over 30,000 people through outreach and in services from the center. The community health workers will be able to detect and manage non complicated cases of NCDs. We will reduce the number of NCDs related dates because cases will be identified at an early stage and prevent complications. We will delay the age and reduce occurrence noncommunicable disease because people will have information of healthy living.

The team has a medical doctor, nurse, public health and sociology professionals who have been working on NCDs prevention and control services to underserved populations. The team has extensive knowledge of working with communities for over five years. 

Together with technical staff, the local communities will be responsible for the identification of needs, planning, implementation and monitoring of the center. The community will take a leading role through the existing health committees. This will ensure that the people are able to live health lives during and after the phase out of the project. The community will be involved at all stages of program activities in all areas to be implemented.  This will ensure program ownership by the community itself. All other community committees will be involved in monitoring the community usage of knowledge gained and make proper adjustments.

Solve will support us with funds to fully establish the center. Thus, Solve will help us improve performance in delivery of NCDs prevention and control to underserved  communities. Through combines efforts, we will add value to our services. Solve will strengthen our organization's capacity to conduct research and make sure we are using it to better the communities we work in. Solve will help us accelerate learning and distribute skills and knowledge. We will be able to add depth and breadth to our impact in the community.

The number of people with NCDs in Malawi is increasing at an alarming rate. This is due to lack of knowledge, modes of health message dissemination, socio-cultural and environmental factors.  Solve can help us with funding, knowledge sharing, technical skills and connecting us to partners who can support us in establishing a Community Center for Lifestyle Excellence where people can get services needed for prevention and control of NCDs.