Community
Our Work
VHW Women's Cooperatives
Thanks to the support of the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, VHW developed our Women’s Cooperatives to provide employment, training and social support to local women, including gender-based violence survivors.
Currently employing about 45 women, the co-ops are comprised of sewing, weaving, soap-making and baking groups. All profits made go directly back to the women of the co-ops.
Purchase
To help support, you can purchase goods made by the cooperatives here:
http://beautifulburundi.bigcartel.com
Meet The WOmen Involved
Click the image above for a look into the lives of some of the women involved.
News and Stories
Individual Experience In Economic Development
Growth: Kigutu's First Ever Fashion Show!
Photo Gallery
Click the image above to take a look at our gallery.
Comprehensive Approach
"We were all impressed not only with the outstanding facilities but also by the tremendous community partnership and support you have generated." — Dr. George Rupp, President & CEO, International Rescue Committee
We deliver world-class, community-driven medical care and local development initiatives from what has rapidly become the premiere health facility in all of Burundi. To treat the root causes of disease and illness, we couple clinical programs with community development initiatives in response to needs defined by community members. Focus areas include food security, education, livelihood skills, gender-based violence and environmental protection.
Clinical Programs
In the past four years we have implemented comprehensive clinical programs and served the needs of over 50,000 patients. Our well established HIV, TB, malnutrition and chronic disease programs continue to grow and achieve outstanding patient outcomes.
Our clinical programs offers a broad range of services, including primary care, child survival, women’s health, specialty clinics, counseling and inpatient treatment. The heart of our health outreach is our growing Community Health Worker program that allows us to reach a wider and wider area. In 2012 we will significantly expand our infrastructure with the construction of our state-of-the-art Women's Health Pavilion and a TB isolation ward.
Food security programs
Food is medicine. That’s why the Food Security Program was our first community development initiative. When we began, community members’ diets were often completely limited to cassava, which doesn’t just lack in nutrients – it’s also toxic when ingested in large amounts. Today, we offer agriculture education, seeds and seedlings, demonstration gardens, land for community garden cooperatives and home garden visits.
Education programs
Education is a developing area of focus in our non-clinical programs, and is also a community-defined priority. Our initial efforts include collaboration with local and national education officials, an after school tutoring and activity program, teacher training, language programs in both French and English, and adult education in computer skills.
Our work recently inspired the "Books for Kigutu" campaign to provide designated financial support and resources to our educational programs.
Economic Development
In addition to providing compassionate health care to those who need it most, our community development programs aim to address the root causes of illness, from poor nutrition to infrastructure. To that end, poverty is the single greatest determinant of health. Our Economic Development programs work to provide opportunities, skills training and support to the people of Kigutu so that they may lift themselves from poverty and thus improve their health and the health of their families.
Clinical Services
Community Oriented, Comprehensive Primary Health Care
Over many years in public health a debate has raged between the merits of delivering a narrowly prescribed set of prevention interventions deemed “cost effective” (ie., vaccination and oral rehydration solution) and that of high quality health care, which includes treatment of disease and their root causes. VHW believes that these approaches are not mutually exclusive; we incorporate both in the design and execution of cost effective programs that address health promotion, disease prevention and the care and treatment of medical conditions and are driven by community priorities. We also employ a community health worker program that has a long demonstrated ability to achieve effective long-term care for chronic illness and preventative medicine in the world’s poorest places.
Child Health
Burundi has one of the highest rates of child mortality in the world: 180 deaths out of 1,000 for children under five. Most of these deaths are due to infection, primarily diarrheal disease, pneumonia and malaria. All are underpinned by malnutrition. VHW’s Child Health program addresses these problems by employing both preventative and therapeutic strategies. Working with Burundi’s Ministry of Health and UNICEF, a strong clinic and community-based vaccination program is working to achieve universal vaccine coverage for the children of Kigutu and our catchment area. Similarly, growth monitoring is standard at the clinic as is active case finding for children with malnutrition in the community. Nurses manage the treatment of childhood illness through the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness strategy, while a physician will attend to the more complicated cases that frequently involve pediatric HIV and TB. Read Joseph’s story, an abandoned child who was restored to health.
Nutrition
Malnutrition is a serious and common problem affecting the community of Kigutu. While community members of all ages are affected, children remain the most vulnerable to the dangerous short-term and long-term complications of malnutrition. Paired with HIV or tuberculosis infection, malnutrition in adults as well as children is associated with more rapid deterioration and death, rendering normally lifesaving medical treatments less effective.
VHW’s nutrition program provides effective inpatient and village-based treatment of malnutrition in adults and children. Read one patient's story here. Employing nutritional and socioeconomic assessment algorithms developed by our sister organization Partners in Health, VHW is able to target and offer food supplementation to those most at risk for developing malnutrition. Ready-to-use-therapeutic food, which is provided through partnerships with UNICEF and the Clinton Foundation is delivered directly to the patients’ homes by VHW’s community health workers. As a result, long-term hospitalization is obviated, which in turn decreases stress to the family and lowers the risk of children acquiring infections while hospitalized. Nutritional support of adults is focused on those who have AIDS and TB, as both are “consumptive” illnesses and are associated with increased caloric requirements.
Women’s health, obstetrics & prenatal care
Skilled health care providers attend a mere 25 percent of births in Burundi, and prenatal care is virtually non-existent in rural settings such as Kigutu. As a result, a Burundian woman has a one-in-nine lifetime risk of dying in childbirth. Prenatal and perinatal care is needed to reduce the staggering rates of maternal and infant mortality.
Routine prenatal visits are essential to monitor pregnancies, identify and treating complications early, and to develop trusting relationships between healthcare providers and pregnant women that can facilitate skilled attendance at delivery. Prenatal visits also serve as an entry point into the health care system.
VHW’s prenatal care program provides prenatal care, nutritional counseling, vaccination, as well as TB and HIV prevention and treatment. It offers formula to infants, provides postpartum counseling regarding breast milk, and identifies and treats conditions such as preeclampsia, anemia, malaria and other conditions linked to maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Active screening for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are also a key part of this program. Long-term consequences of untreated STIs for women include increased susceptibility to HIV transmission, infertility, ectopic pregnancy and cervical cancer. VHW programs provide a comprehensive approach to prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, which involve risk-based screening protocols, and essential medications for treatment. STI training curricula have been provided to community health workers as part of their outreach services.
Though uncommon in the United States and other developed countries, mother-to-child transmission of HIV remains a serious problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Without prophylactic intervention, at least one-third of children born to HIV positive women become infected. In addition to universal HIV screening, VHW is working to provide antiretroviral medicines to all HIV positive women and their infants. These medicines provided before, during, and after delivery, are part of a comprehensive prevention of mother-to-child transmission strategy, which can reduce HIV transmission to fewer than 2 percent.
Thanks to the generous financial commitment of the Pershing Square Foundation and other partners, VHW will break ground on our Women’s Health Pavilion in 2012. The new facility will provide the crucial prenatal and neonatal care that so many Burundian women lack.
HIV, TB and Malaria Programs
Burundi has submitted a successful application to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Moreover, the creation of the National AIDS Control Committee reflects a strong government commitment to scale-up antiretroviral treatment throughout the country. VHW has a close working partnership with Burundi’s National AIDS Control Committee, and is committed to rolling out HIV prevention and care services in the Kigutu catchment area.
The proximity of the Kigutu community to Lake Tanganyika has made it susceptible to high rates of HIV/AIDS and malaria infections. HIV transmission is increased by the constant flow of fisherman and other travelers who use Lake Tanganyika as a means of transportation from nearby countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo. Such movement has contributed to the region having the country’s second highest HIV prevalence, after the capital. Early prevention activities include community health worker outreach with local leaders and women’s groups to promote universal voluntary counseling and testing. However, these efforts can only succeed if treatment is available to those who test HIV positive. VHW currently offers antiretroviral treatment according to Burundian government protocols and the HIV/AIDS treatment guidelines created by Partners In Health. VHW’s HIV/AIDS treatment program relies on village-based implementation and daily-observed therapy by community health workers. Recruitment and training of Burundian physicians and nurses is ongoing, with the vast majority of primary care services implemented by these local providers.
With respect to malaria, the region’s warm temperatures, constant presence of stagnant water during the rainy season and poor sanitation, have led to high mosquito populations and malaria incidence within the village and surrounding environs. As a result, VHW has dedicated substantial efforts for the treatment and prevention of the disease, which remains a leading cause of illness and death in Burundi. Children under age five, especially infants age 6 to 12 months, are at higher risk for the complications of severe malaria because of their immature immune system. Malaria during pregnancy is associated with premature delivery, low birth weight, and increases in both maternal and neonatal mortality.
VHW’s malaria program employs a combination drug treatment approach advocated by the World Health Organization’s “Roll Back Malaria” program to target these high-risk groups. Prevention efforts also feature prominently in our program. Currently, only 1 to 3 percent of children under the age of five in Burundi sleep under insecticide-treated bed nets. VHW aggressively targets families with children at this vulnerable age along with pregnant women, with the help of insecticide-treated mosquito nets. Vigorous education efforts at the community level stress the need for early treatment of children with fever and reinforce the proper use of bed nets. Community health workers further emphasize and encourage these practices during home visits.
Food Security Programs
To get our program started, our first task was to try different crops, mostly vegetables and fruits, to identify what would grow best during both the rainy and dry seasons. Amazingly, we’ve yet to find a single fruit, vegetable or grain that we can’t grow in the rich Burundian soil. We now grow, teach and distribute a variety of vegetables and fruits including carrots, cabbages, onions, radishes, amaranth, eggplants, African eggplants, moringa, sweet and hot peppers, soybeans, tomatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, Japanese plums, gooseberries, passion fruit, papaya, pineapple, guava and pomegranate.
Staff and community volunteers harvest from the Food Security Program gardens to distribute food and seedlings to patients and parents of children in our malnutrition ward. They also receive education sessions on nutrition twice a week.
The Food Security Program promotes home gardens in the surrounding communities with 12 staff for home visits. We also provide training programs in our demonstration garden and seedling distribution to outpatients, community volunteers and more distant residents via home visit staff.
The community proposed agricultural cooperatives during the annual VHW forum in December 2010. We provided land, and community members, mostly women, have already established six agricultural cooperatives next to the clinic. Other cooperatives are being started throughout the community with our help. Cooperatives allow groups to grow a greater variety of crops – and get a more diversified diet – as they work together. Today, we’re helping these cooperatives develop internal rules and regulations in order to register and acquire official legal status to apply for local and international grants and loans.
The Food Security Program also has an animal husbandry of chickens and goats. We’re currently using chickens to produce eggs for malnourished patients. The animal dung is used as manure to fertilize our gardens. Ultimately, we will breed enough chickens and goats to establish an animal distribution program.
Why Invest in VHW
Impact: Proven, Effective Strategies
“There are lots of ways to make a difference. I’m a VHW supporter because, just like your investment portfolio should be diversified, I want to support a variety of causes that are creating positive change in the world. I invest in VHW’s work because it’s effective and scalable. We’re saving lives everyday. We’re proving that – even in one of the poorest places on earth – with collaboration and compassion we can lift up an entire community.” - Paul English, Co-founder, KAYAK.com & VHW Board Member
The merits of delivering a narrowly proscribed set of prevention interventions deemed “cost effective” (ie., vaccination and oral rehydration solution) and that of high quality health care that includes treatment of disease and its root causes have been long debated in public health. VHW incorporates both in the design and execution of our cost effective programs that address health promotion, disease prevention and the care and treatment of medical conditions and are driven by community priorities.
We have demonstrated efficient and effective clinical care through our use of the community health worker model pioneered by our sister organization Partners In Health. Further, we manage the treatment of childhood illness through the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness strategy.
Read Joseph’s story, an abandoned child who was restored to health.
A Comprehensive Approach
Where there’s health, there is hope. Providing quality care is the starting point for building a successful society – and with that foundation, we can address other critical needs like education and economic development.
The combined effect of poverty and disease decimates key infrastructure and industries, ruins the social fabric of communities, and threatens political stability. Early death and chronic disability from preventable diseases kills economic productivity. High rates of infant and child mortality make family planning impossible. And the economic costs of preventable disease are staggeringly high.
Conversely, breakthroughs in public health and improved nutritional intake support economic growth in places like Europe, Asia, and North America. At Village Health Works, we are facilitating these same outcomes by effectively addressing the health needs in Kigutu and its surrounding communities.
The Overwhelming Need
In our interconnected world, we cannot ignore misery in other parts of the world and expect it not to impact us no matter how far away. More than ever, human misery has no geographic boundaries. In 2006, the World Bank ranked Burundi as the poorest country on earth; today, it remains amongst the poorest three; according to UNICEF, its health statistics are among the worst in the world. The basic needs in Burundi are tremendous and are a matter of life and death. Your support can help break the cycle of despair and bring hope and life back to the people of this region.
Women’s Health Pavilion
On Mother's Day 2003, the United Nations ranked Burundi as one of the world's five worst places for women and children. Still today, Burundian women die with startling frequency. Approximately one in 10 die during pregnancy or in childbirth. Nearly 13 percent of Burundian babies die before their first birthday; almost one in five die before they reach age five from preventable disease and illness.
“The Women's Health Pavilion will be transformative for women and children’s health care in Burundi, and will dramatically expand our clinical capacity.” – David Cohen, Executive Director
Acclaimed architect Louise Braverman designed the state-of-the-art facility after a trip to Kigutu where she met with more than 50 women from the community to discuss their most pressing health needs. In addition, she consulted with our medical staff and experts in global health to design the center. Having worked on multiple international projects and designed hospital facilities (including Roosevelt Hospital's C.V. Starr Hand Surgery Center), Braverman is uniquely suited to lead our effort.
Ground breaking is scheduled for March 2012 and will be fully operational in 2013. The $1.1 million facility totals more than 23,000 square feet and includes 50 inpatient beds, three surgical suites, pre-op and post-op care, neonatal care and a dental suite. Our clinical staff will increase by 50 percent over the coming year to meet the needs of the Women’s Health Pavilion. In addition to increased clinical services, we will be expanding women’s programs in the areas of gender-based violence, economic development and education.
From the architect
Our design for the Women’s Health Pavilion is a love affair with the east African natural and cultural landscapes in the context of sustainability, efficiency, and social advancement. Cutting a curved line in the terrain running parallel with the contours of the earth, the Pavilion is sited to capture views of a lush communal rain garden, one of many in the Master Plan that we have also created for the 40 acre site.
The innovative aesthetic of the 23,000 square foot building speaks to the future of Kigutu while simultaneously resonating with Burundian culture, materials, building practices, and landscape tradition. Given the mission of VHW to bring health to this rural village through collaborative efforts between the community and people in the United States, our design is an effort to help achieve that aspiration by creating a physical platform for a cultural shift from primal to modern medicine.
An emblematic design element of the Pavilion that reinforces the Kigutu outdoor communal culture is the arched roofed waiting porches that will seamlessly connect the inside and out. These porches take on multiple functions. Located between key medical spaces, including the outpatient/lab offices, nursery, inpatient wards, surgical lounge and delivery rooms, they will enhance healthy air flow by naturally ventilating adjacent rooms. They additionally will help define an architectural sense of human scale, for the layout of alternating medical spaces punctuated by porches will create a series of smaller modular pavilions within the larger Women’s Pavilion. The porosity of the porches will also encourage sociability while simultaneously framing magnificent unobstructed transverse views of the landscape beyond.
The same elemental design moves that establish its aesthetics will also advance its sustainability. Since the Kigutu community is currently 100% off the municipal grid, the Pavilion will be powered by a solar farm, capturing its required energy from the sun. The building will literally grow out of the landscape. Sited partially below grade and in alignment with the contours of the earth, the location of the building will both reduce excavation costs and take advantage of the earth’s natural insulation for temperature control.
In order to further embrace the notion of low environmental impact, the naturally ventilated waiting porches will eliminate much of the need for energy intensive air conditioning. The extended roof overhangs will also provide solar protection to optimize the use of natural daylight, while cisterns will capture rainwater for irrigation. Yet the greatest efficiency will be the human efficiency, for the members of the community, using locally produced high thermal mass insulating bricks and indigenous stone, will manually build the residence, negating the need for fuel consuming machines and creating transferrable job training skills for members of the Kigutu community.
At its very core the essence of our design for the Women’s Health Pavilion with its forward-thinking aesthetic and inventive off-the grid sustainability is really quite elemental. It is our response to Village Health Works fundamental belief communicated to me when we first met that “…despite the fact that these people are poor, they still deserve state of the art buildings that are beautiful”.
Economic Development
A new area for Village Health Works, our Economic Development programs work to provide opportunities, skills training and support to the people of Kigutu so that they may lift themselves from poverty and thus improve their health and the health of their families.
To date, we've formed 16 agricultural co-operatives; these community members receive training, seeds and other tools they need to grow their business.
Further, in 2012 VHW will launch four, Women's Empowerment Co-operatives to better serve un and underemployed women in our cachement area. Co-op members will benefit from skills training, business lessons and basic Kirundi, French and financial literacy education.
In the near future, these amazing women will also have access to onsite child care services, a microsavings and insurance program and ongoing business, counseling and health support from the VHW community.
To learn more about our skills trainers, co-op members and products, click here.
Get Involved
Feeling inspired to get involved with Village Health Works? Just finished reading Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains? Your contribution of energy, donations, time and expertise will make a difference.
To learn more about current internship and volunteer opportunities, please click here.
Donate
Did you know that it costs about $5 to save the life of a malnourished child? Making a donation today will go directly to funding our efforts in Kigutu where everyday our staff provides high quality health care to hundreds of patients. Your donation today will be in the field tomorrow. Donate now!
Fundraising
Fundraising is a great way to support VHW and the care we provide to those in need. You, your school, your community, and your friends can have a significant impact on the work we are doing on the ground in Kigutu. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Grow the Community
Social media is a great way to grow the community of people supporting Village Health Works. By sharing, retweeting and posting VHW stories and content for your friends to see, you’ll be making a statement about your values, educating them about global health and encouraging them to take action themselves.
Here at VHW, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube aren’t just ways for us to communicate with you, they are also ways for you to communicate with us. We want your ideas, your feedback, your questions and your concerns. We hope you will use these tools to have a conversation with us about VHW, global health and development.
Start a Student Group on your campus! Get active with the Student Network of Village Health Works, which is a growing forum for sharing ideas and enthusiasm. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to get started.
Volunteering
Volunteer opportunities are available in our New York office. Work ranges from help with procurement, website development, web content creation, development and events.
Limited volunteer opportunities are available in Burundi. Applicants should have a background in public health, construction, education or agriculture.
Interested applicants should apply here.
Organize an Event
Bringing together your friends, family and coworkers is a great way to help VHW. You can help raise money and awareness for Village Health Works and issues of global health, development and social justice. Learn more about organizing an event!
Some other suggestions: Invite your guests to read Strength in What Remains before your event; invite a VHW representative to attend or join you by conference call; ask your guests to host their own events and invite their circle of friends.
Host a Movie Night
Film is a great way to tell a story. Since Burundi is such a foreign place to many Americans, movies can help people understand and relate to this far away place. Also, watching a film in addition to reading Strength in What Remains provides texture and depth to Deo’s story. Check out our list of recommended films.
Introduce Strength in What Remains to Others
Suggesting Strength in What Remains to your book club, local library, teachers or to community organizations will help raise awareness about Burundi, international aid and Village Health Works. Communities around the country – some as large as entire towns – have read Strength in What Remains together.
