Students in Padeng Primary School set up a local system for waste management - making a small step to improve the cleanliness of their school.
Comprehensive School Health Programs delivered by community health workers in rural primary schools.
The Comprehensive Health and Hygiene Improvement Program (CHHIP) is a health and education improvement program created for implementation in rural primary schools in the Darjeeling District of West Bengal, India.
How do you deliver cost effective health care to hard to reach rural areas around the world?
Our model is to create innovative programs, implement them into our communities, and test them using the scientific method to ensure they are high impact, cost effective, and evidence based.
We take a three pronged approach to deliver health care utilizing the talent that already exists within the local communities which we work. Our core programs are delivered via local human resources; School Health Workers which are local community members that are hired and trained by Broadleaf, and Primary School Teachers.
We call our two keystone programs CHHIP and TeaLeaF.
Three Components of CHHIP
Improvements to School Health Environments
The first step is to ensure the schools that we work in our structurally sound and have basic infrastructure such as running water and working toilets.
Broadleaf works with local communities to complete the necessary construction projects at the schools before implementing the rest of our initiatives.
Health and Hygiene Education
Broadleaf has created a teacher training program to improve in school learning and a health and hygiene education curriculum.
Our curriculum and supporting materials and activities are delivered by our School Health Activists (SHAs) who teach their students about water, sanitation, hygiene, germs, and nutrition so they can stay healthy and in school.
Primary Health Services Intervention
Broadleaf has developed a training, screening, and decision making program to empower our School Health Activists (SHAs) to not only provide primary health care services but also know when to escalate and refer issues and how to help families navigate and access the healthcare system.
SHAs are a local resource for our communities and provide health services such as distribution of deworming tablets and iron supplements, vision screenings, growth monitoring, dental care and behavioral and mental health screening.
Our Impact
From the beginning, we've taken a scientific approach to understanding the results of our CHHIP program. Anecdotes are heart warming, but too often, there are too many "good intentions" in global development. Too much money is invested in programs that do not deliver cost effective results. Using the scientific method, we've been able to prove significant improvements to the local communities where we work.
We found a >40% reduction in diarrhea rates in students within our CHHIP schools.
Parents in our communities reported improvements to their children's physical health.
Students in CHHIP schools had a 13% increase in health knowledge.
Our students had improvements to their height and weight scores
Students in CHHIP schools attend more days of school per year.
Teachers in CHHIP schools report decreased use of corporal punishment.
Our Reach
With your help, we will reach more than 5,000 students across 70 community schools in rural communities of the Eastern Himalayas. Over 500 children struggling with behavioral and mental health challenges will receive evidence based care from their teachers. Students within our CHHIP schools benefit from our health inventions which include; iron supplementation, vision screening, de-worming, and other high impact primary health services.
Our programs are reaching more than 1,400 students per year. Over 500 children struggling with behavioral and mental health challenges will receive evidence based care.
We have trained more than 13 teachers and 5 Schools Health Workers who deliver more than 11,000 hours of health education lessons both in the classroom and to the broader community.
We are currently working in over 70 schools within 6 communities within the Darjeeling District
We've worked with our partner schools and communities to build more than 35 infrastructure projects including; toilets, clean water systems, and new classrooms.
Stories from the field