WiRED Returns to Armenia to Establish Community Health Education Centers

BY ALLISON KOZICHAROW; EDITED BY BERNICE BORN

Building on last year’s exploratory trip, WiRED International revisited Armenia in order to open several community health education centers (CHEs) and scout out more locations for future activities.

Our training facilities will be placed in additional locations that offer the greatest impact on Armenian community health. WiRED’s information centers are locally run and become a central part of the communities they serve. These centers will host community meetings for pregnant women, diabetes patients, elderly people and others who can benefit from focused health education.

As part of our outreach program process, we first set up community meetings around a specified medical/health topic. At these meetings, WiRED’s presenters walk people through the given module, engaging the group in interactions around key points and offering quizzes on the material.

We provide our complete and updated W-HELP library to each center with portable media through thumb drives and deliver a projector to run the modules. We are in the process of fund-raising for additional projectors.

As before, WiRED partnered with a diverse group of organizations and individuals. WiRED Director Dr. Gary Selnow traveled with WiRED’s Armenia representative, Sebouh Baghdoyan. They met with Peace Corps Volunteers, Armenia Caritas officials, physicians, and people who worked at social welfare nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—all of whom will be involved in operating the CHE programs.

WiRED established four CHEs: in Gavar (Good Hope NGO), Vanadzor (Medical Centre operated by Dr. Karen Adamyan), Orran [NGO], and Yerevan (Orran NGO). In addition, Ms. Armine Hovannisian, director of Orran, will be working with WiRED on program coordination within Armenia, and Dr. Adamyan of the Medical Centre of Vanadzor will assist in translating some of our modules into Armenian. He will be working on translations with Dr. Ara Nahabedian and Hovig Takukyan.

WiRED is proud to have the tools to take our programs to the needy people of Armenia. Also, we plan to provide these programs to Peace Corps Volunteers who can use them in a wide variety of community training forums. We are excited that Armenia has joined the W-HELP network, as WiRED extends its mission to improve community health around the world.