About Us

Mission

HealthEd Connect empowers women and children through evidence-based health, education, and advocacy programs.

HealthEd Connect builds on a solid foundation of over 30 years of experience with volunteer community health workers who are directly involved with the families and special needs in their villages. Many of these villages are now facing incredible challenges as the number of orphaned children, primarily due to HIV/AIDS, has grown dramatically and the typical surviving caregiver is an aging grandmother who has lost both her husband and children. As always, HealthEd Connect will remain flexible and adaptive by connecting villagers and their leaders to expanding visions of possibilities and opportunities, targeted training, and access to resources.

Objectives

We use the following objectives to further our mission:

• Train and empower community health workers who provide a bridge between the villagers and health and educational professionals.

• Use a participatory research model to train community members to conduct targeted assessments of women’s and children’s needs.

• Develop evidence-based education and health programs to meet needs based on the community health worker findings.

• Advocate for local people by connecting them with resources, organizations, training programs, and funds to carry out the education and health programs they have identified as top priorities.

• Recruit a support team of individuals with skills and means who have a passion for making a difference in the lives of children.

• Mentor and develop local leadership to ensure self-sufficient and sustainable programs.

Philosophy

The foundation for our programs is participatory research (PR) conducted by community health workers (CHWs) and local leaders. PR empowers people from the beginning, positioning them as “the experts” from the start. This increases self-esteem, self-confidence, women’s status, and prepares and uplifts the leaders of tomorrow.

History

HealthEd Connect was incorporated on May 19, 2009 in the State of Missouri with a 15 member board of directors. The organization itself may be relatively new, but it has a rich heritage of passionate people and organizations that preceded its formal organization.

Sherri Kirkpatrick, PhD, began her work training community health workers (CHW) in Haiti in 1982…

Finances