Presentation of the community champions programme

The community champions project is a programme launched under the banner of the "Zero Malaria! Count Me In!" campaign in 2014 by the NGOs PATH and Speak Up Africa and inaugurated by the Minister of Health and Social Action, Awa Marie Coll-Seck. It seeks to promote community action to eliminate malaria through awareness-raising and behavioural change in line with the Ministry of Health and Social Action's 2016-2018 National Strategic Plan.Community champions are local contact points linked to health centres. Their mission is to initiate and continue actions focusing on the responsible participation of populations in the fight against malaria, along with hygiene and environmental conservation actions. For this eponymous project they are the tools and actors of development in their neighbourhoods through their actions in the field.

The programme's four goals are:

To improve the availability and quality of information at a community level.To facilitate community use of preventive measures in the fight against malaria.To improve relations and cooperation between health teams (region/district), civil society organisations and community actors.To pool resources to harmonise interventions by community actors.To promote community health in line with the Ministry of Health and Social Action's National Strategy Plan on community health.

As part of their mission to fight malaria, champions have an action plan that includes activities such as:

Conversations

Community champions will work full-time, and it is necessary – even essential – for them to approach various influential groups to achieve these goals. Before trying to ensure commitment and involvement in combatting malaria, the aim of these conversations is to help groups to identify the main obstacles to adopting behaviour in favour of fighting malaria. Identifying problems in a participatory way should, during the conversations, lead to proposals for solutions from the group. Community champions stimulate the groups' need for information so that they are fully aware of the problem. They guide them to established preventive measures. In turn, champions must report

information from the community to various partners so that the community is committed to establishing anti-malaria measures.

Home visits

Community champions are not doctors; they must be seen by the community as a resource, a source of assistance, and therefore close integration in the community is essential. Home visits enable the establishment of a local, intimate relationship that aims to lighten conversation during the visit as well as provide an opportunity for champions to assess the community environment, identify risk factors and offer specific solutions, individualised if possible, or refer to the appropriate authorities to take measures. Households with a good understanding of malaria will be given a Zero Malaria certificate and a Zero Malaria sticker that can be placed in the window of the home to show that knowledge and attitudes to be adopted in the fight against malaria are respected there.

Set Settal

This activity involves hygiene and sanitation in the environment, an important factor in the fight against malaria by eliminating larva nests. As a large-scale cleaning exercise, Set Settal will be organised by the community champion once a month, involving as many people and local authorities as possible.

The project, which began in December, will be in its sixth month in June. For the time being it is only conducted in the Pikine Est district, at four health centres: Khourounar, Darou Khoudoss, Municipal 2 and Dalifort.

Each of these four health centres has two champions who carry out the monthly calendar of activities under the supervision of the district authorities and Chief Nurse.