The program is funded by PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and is a collaborative effort of the Empower Tanzania, Inc and the Pare Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.  However, the project’s activities are ecumenical, with all religious groups invited to the initial training programs and pilot sites selected at facilities managed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Tanzanian Government and the Lutheran Church.

A major focus of the program is sustainability after grant funding is completed. To achieve this, Tanzanian faculty collaborated with US volunteers to do the initial training in Year 1. During Year 2, Tanzanian faculty created the training curriculum , with some limited consultation by Iowa volunteers, they did all the training.  In each of the pilot sites, a Sustaining Trainer has been selected who will oversee the activities of the community volunteers and provide ongoing training and evaluation.  Additional sites will be selected during future program years following the same pattern of increasing reliance on Tanzanian people and resources.

The project is currently in its fourth year, and the team of medical professionals from both the U.S. and Tanzania are excited to see the project moving into the Njombe District in southern Tanzania, thanks to involvement with the Peterson Family Foundation and Dr. Tim Peterson.

Great successes so far....

• To date, 100 people from 10 villages have been trained in end-of-life care
• 200 health care professionals have been trained in the concepts and techniques of palliative care
• Training has been done successfully by a joint American-Tanzanian faculty, using a curriculum developed by Africans for Africans
• Ten sites were chosen, and ten nurse supervisors were selected, who then chose ten people from the ten villages to participate in the training
• The 100 Community Workers and the ten supervisors attended a 10-day training program on specific means of providing palliative care.  This was done by a Tanzanian faculty.
• Over 1,000 patients have received these services from someone in their own village.
• The program has been so successful, it has been expanded to include training in a new primary care skill set-Safe Motherhood
• The Safe Motherhood Program trainers will be Tanzanian, and use an official curriculum to add this new skill set to the Community Workers

Operating at the village level with local faculty is a key component of these projects and reflects the philosophy of Empower Tanzania, Inc.  It has given American and Tanzanian Health Care Professionals many opportunities to interact and work together, and it is hard to say who has benefited more!