The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania is
partnering with the Southeast Iowa Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Iowa Sister States, and Iowa Health Des Moines to strengthen palliative care capacity in Tanzania’s Pare Diocese. Partners are training both medical and non-medical workers,
including community volunteers to provide high quality care and support to people living with HIV with the goal of improving clinic and home based palliative care.
Launched in 2007, the partnership helped train some 200 clinical and church leaders in the concepts and practices of palliative care using the African Palliative Care Association’s curriculum during its first year.
In 2008, partners selected six pilot sites where each local health facility chose 10 Community Workers and a
Sustaining Trainer for targeted training and development. Tanzanian faculty trained these six Sustaining Trainers and 60 Community Workers in a two-week course on home-based care palliative care. Since then, more 500 patients have been visited in their homes by these
Community Workers, who provide comfort and
supportive care to patients and their families.
Future activities include increasing the number of
sites and developing mentoring and distance learning
programs for the Sustaining Trainers and Community Workers.
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