Community Health Volunteers

Community Health Volunteers (CHV) was set up by Gabriel Masundi. Before starting CHV Gabriel worked as a bird guide in the Kakamega forest. He was drawn in to running a health programme, when he saw the problems that children were facing with tungiasis (a painful skin infection caused by a flea called tunga penetrans/jiggers) and the difficulties they had accessing services. He increasingly realised there were wider health issues these communities were facing. 

CHV has been in partnership with CHASE Africa since 2016. This alliance has supported hundreds of mobile clinics with hundreds of thousands of patients being seen for general healthcare issues. Thousands of women have been able to choose and access family planning.

As with all our partners, CHV supports community health workers to go door to door before a clinic happens, to raise awareness and provide health information. A public address system mounted on a car visits the catchment area and shares the date of the clinic. 

Announcements are also made at church services, posters are displayed around the region, and head teachers are encouraged to inform their pupils and asked to pass on information to their parents.

Community Health Volunteers organise a range of mobile outreach services. They work together with the local government to provide services such as referrals, door-to-door services and outreach clinics. They collaborate closely with community and faith leaders, including Catholic and Muslim clerics to help create a supportive environment for health service uptake, including contraception use.

CHV is planning to roll out its healthcare model to reach more adolescents and young people, both in and out of school in 2024.