Village Health Partnership was recently featured at the Rotary District 5450 WASH Symposium in Denver on October 8th, 2022. The Symposium focused on creating IMPACT in the global water, sanitation, and hygiene sector.
IMPACT: Innovation, Multi-Sectoral, Partnerships, Assessments, Community, and Testing
The impact of VHP’s diverse partnerships in Ethiopia and the United States was the topic of a panel discussion. We were joined by People 2 People, a nonprofit that supports orphans around the world, in discussing key elements to successful partnerships. View the PowerPoint presentation, as well as a summary of presentation highlights, below.
Presentation highlights
- VHP builds deep partnerships with individuals and organizations in both Ethiopia and in the U.S. to fulfill its mission.
Partnerships
- Partners in southwest Ethiopia include…
- Afro Ethiopian Integrated Development (AEID), an Ethiopian NGO that specializes in clean water projects and constructing maternity waiting compounds
- Sun Transfer Technologies, an Ethiopian company that specializes in solar power solutions designed specifically for industrial use in rural Ethiopia.
- Mizan Tepi University and the Mizan Tepi University Teaching Hospital
- Rotary Club of Addis Ababa, with whom we collaborate for directing project funding
- Partners in the United States include…
- Water Engineers for the Americas and Africa (WEFTA), who offer subject matter expertise to clean water solutions for each health care facility in the southwest region of Ethiopia. WEFTA engineers have also devoted considerable time to ensuring the success of each unique water solution by traveling to Ethiopia with VHP and continuing work with each health care facility. Finally, WEFTA engineers have collaborated with us to develop and deploy an app targeted to collect critical data to inform programs going forward.
- Aqua Research, Inc., a chlorine production company that focuses on low income settings to ensure that health care facilities have access to clean water and disinfectants for cleaning
- Colorado OB/Gyn physicians, who we consult with to inform our clinical programs
- Local Rotary clubs
Programs
- Our programs are currently focused in the west and southwest regions of the country.
- In the west, VHP is partnering with local stakeholders and Aira Hospital to treat women with gynecologic complications of child birth, including fistula.
- In the southwest, VHP is collaborating with its partners to build a health system of care that will give pregnant women and neonates, and all 700,000 residents, access to clean, safe and effective healthcare. We do this by focusing on the following elements:
- Access to adequate, reliable supplies of clean water and solar power,
- Access to health care professionals who have the clinical skills and equipment necessary to provide skilled childbirth services at each level of care, and
- Infrastructure such as maternity waiting compounds that allow each health care facility to meet the health care needs of pregnant village women seeking safe childbirth services.
Pillars for Effective Partnerships
- There are several key attributes to VHP’s successful partnerships:
- Inclusion: VHP seeks to work with community stakeholders, health care facility leaders and health care providers, as well as Ethiopian and U.S. partners at all phases of projects.
- Grassroots: VHP’s approach is grass roots—VHP does not present defined solutions for water or power to any health care facility. Rather, VHP works with all partners to come to shared understandings of paths forward that each health care facility and community support.
- Annual Trips: VHP’s inclusive and grassroots driven approach is successful because VHP travels to Ethiopia annually to meet with partners face-to-face, to dialogue and understand how community needs are evolving and how projects in process are progressing.
- “One Project at a Time”: VHP works with its partners to accomplish one project at a time. This approach allows partners to define work that is possible and creates a vehicle for open dialogue on process.
