Collective wisdom to guide new programs

A community health worker with a patient in rural Malawi.

By Jenna LeMieux, PIH Director of Programs

	Construction on Neno District Hospital in 2007.
	Training community health workers.

When I began working for Partners In Health in January of 2007 as a program manager, I thought I had a good sense of the scope and responsibilities of the position I had accepted. I was to help launch the new PIH-supported site in Malawi, Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU). I spent about two months in Boston before I moved to Malawi, and during that time was able to make valuable connections to colleagues with expertise in finance, procurement, and human resources. Little did I know how valuable those connections would become. 

Looking back now, I am amazed by the complexity and volume of work that awaited our team. I had no idea how varied and lengthy my “to-do” list would be. Partnering with the Ministry of Health, we wanted to immediately begin supporting and improving the care available to patients in Neno District. We set to work on substantial renovations at several health centers, with the goal of providing dignified and well-equipped settings in which patients could receive care. We began planning for the construction of a brand new, two-story district hospital. And we began constructing 26 housing units for the Ministry of Health staff and ourselves.

We hired cleaners, guards, nurses, cooks, and administrative staff. We worked with Village Headmen to identify community health workers. We partnered with local community-based organizations to understand grassroots activities already taking place to educate people about HIV transmission and prevention, and to understand how we could support those activities. We established relationships with hospital equipment and supplies vendors in the nearest large city, and began to renovate a large building that would serve as a warehouse.

Our long list of goals was informed and shaped by my colleagues at PIH who had engaged in similar start-up activities in Rwanda and Lesotho, among other places. Their collective experience and wisdom guided our work, and helped us prioritize among a dozen urgent and competing demands. When I first began working in Neno, I was fortunate to have access to individuals who could answer the dozens of questions I had on a daily basis. Their advice and counsel was invaluable, and the Program Management Guide represents our effort to share that collective experience with others.

My work in Neno was supported by a robust network of experienced professionals willing to offer their time and expertise to help guide our work. Those same individuals have pored over this guide, adding the content and stories, sharing their knowledge and advice, which is rooted deeply in PIH philosophy and based on decades of field experience. We hope it will serve as a practical and useful tool for program managers, and for others engaged in this work around the globe. 

Check out PIH's new Program Managment Guide.

Malawi's Neno District Hospital today.