December marked an incredible month for International HELP.

We were invited to a private meeting with the city government leader of Ongole, who represents over 50,000 individuals in this region of India. We had the opportunity to sit with him, and other key government leaders, and share on disease prevention, sanitation and hygiene, and ways to improve the overall health of the region. This unique opportunity paved an unexpected, but much-needed chance to educate, equip, and empower community leaders on health education. We were given the privilege to provide life-saving training to over 45 women in the Ongole region. We officially certified 22 women as Community Health Workers. These women serve as community representatives and each one reaches 300-500 people, many of whom live in the slums.

This unique opportunity paved an unexpected, but much-needed chance to educate, equip, and empower community leaders on health education.

We taught on first aid, sanitation and hygiene, how to care for sick people, how diseases spread, wound care, and other critical health topics.

After each training session, each woman repeatedly stressed how they had never heard this information and how grateful they were that we came to share with them the knowledge that will help them improve the overall health of their community. The notebooks with the training materials we provided each woman were held onto like a rare treasure.

This was my first time going to India and it was truly life-changing for me.

India is colorful, vibrant, and rhythmic. The people showed immense hospitality and gratitude for the health education we shared. Yet there is still a massive need for the country with the second largest population (nearly 1.3 billion people)! There is still much work to be done, but I am inspired to know that there are now 22 CHW’s who are already putting their health knowledge into practice and changing the course of their community.

– Andrea Perdomo, Strategy Consultant