Medical students empower health workers

As part of the University of Cape Town medical training, fourth-year students visited Vanguard Community Heath Centre in Bonteheuwel to implement a health-promoting project.

Medical student Mikail Kreuzer said different groups of his classmates were placed in various communities in Cape Town and were tasked with creating a health promotion project that “targets an important health burden in the community”. 

“Our group wanted to hold a workshop and create health promotion material for educating the organisation, Kheth’Impilo community health workers, about HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). We aimed to have a dynamic session, combining presentations, rotating workshops, and group-led discussions. 

“The session was to empower community health workers to educate their community about the various available methods of HIV infection prevention. Community health workers are the backbone of health promotion in Bonteheuwel and we are grateful that we were able to contribute to the impactful, important work that they do. We were incredibly excited to be involved in a community-based project like this and we are deeply appreciative of the enthusiasm the community health workers brought to the session,” he said.

Olive January, a community health worker at  Keth’Impilo said the workshop was very informative. 

“The workshop was very interactive and that is what I liked about it. At some other workshops, people stand in front and they only talk, but these medical students’ structure they used was nice. I have learnt a lot. I work in the field and what they taught us, helped us to understand what they say in ‘layman’s terms’. The way they explained things to us, now made it easier for us to explain it to the community. They also made a colourful poster, which made it even easier for the rest of the community to understand. I am very impressed with them,” Ms January said.

Mikail said he and his group also learnt from the community health workers. 

“We, as medical students and aspiring doctors, certainly learnt a great deal from them about the problems and successes they experience daily. We are inspired by their commitment to improving health in their communities and their dedication to ongoing learning.”