COMMUNITY
HEALTH
WORKERS 
Community health workers work – and ours have not lost a single mother or child in their care in more than six years.
Around the world and in Mali, when trained community health workers provide health education and rapid referral to health centers, mothers and children are healthier. Mali Health has 41 community health workers who are paid, supervised, and continually trained.
Paid community health workers are not a part of the peri-urban health system in Mali. Only rural communities have the community health workers known as ASC – agents de la santé communautaire. There are volunteer health workers known as relais – but there is no formal system for their training or support.
We believe that community health workers play an important role in peri-urban communities and that they are a key component of a strong, local, community health system that can bring health to all.
Here’s more about them, their work, and their commitment to their communities.
I decided to become a community health worker seven years ago when poverty was increasing in my community. Children were ill and unable to have adequate healthcare and more mothers were losing children during pregnancies because they received no prenatal care. So I decided to become a part of the solution.
- Sidi Fane, Sikoro
WHAT COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKERS DO
Every day in peri-urban communities across Bamako, our community health workers:
- visit enrolled families to monitor health and growth
- refer mothers and children to the health center when needed
- provide important preventive health information at every visit
OUR RESULTS
41
community health workers
serving
6
peri-urban communities
in Bamako
2,742
children enrolled
59,899
home visits in 2018
UPDATES
How a strong community health system keeps mothers at the heart of primary care
In March, one of our health center partners, CSCOMSEKASI, reported 2 new malnutrition cases. That may not seem like many, but malnutrition is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths among children under age 5 in Mali. One of the areas served by CSCOMSEKASI is...
An update from community health supervisor Kadidiatou
Back in May, we shared the experience of Kadidiatou, one of our community health worker leaders, as she worked hard to keep her family and the families she serves as a community health worker (CHW) safe from COVID-19. As a CHW and supervisor for the other Mali Health...
Join Sonata on a visit to the Diarra family
Halfway up the face of a steep and rocky hill in the community of Sikoro lives Fatoumata and her family. Fatoumata, a mother of four, begins to share the story of when two Mali Health community health workers first visited in 2011. Alimata, Fatoumata’s mother-in-law,...
Contact Us:
P.O. Box 51632
Durham, NC 27717
Hamdallaye ACI 2000
Rue 407, Porte 267
Bamako, Mali
info@malihealth.org
617.475.0995
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