CHE is Community Health Empowerment. It is a ministry of the church where community members are taught how to live better lives in a wholistic sense through spiritual, health, and development training.
The AGC CHE ministry is part of the Global CHE network, and CHE Uganda.
We did our first training in CHE in 2008, and followed it up with our first series of TOTs (Training of Trainers) in 2009. In 2011, we are doing an additional set of TOTs to launch the ministry in three additional areas of the AGC.
In the TOT training, our goal is to train 2 or 3 trainers from a particular location on how the CHE ministry works. Then then work with their church and community to organized and train a local committee to oversee the ministry there.
The local CHE committee then recruits "CHEs" ... Community Health Educators, who are trained by the trainers.
After their initial training, these CHEs begin to visit some homes near where they live, on a voluntary basis, to bring a simple spiritual lesson and a simple physical / health lesson for the benefit of the family they are visiting.
Some CHEs visit 5 homes, others 10 or 15. Their goal is to help raise the awareness of health living principles and practices in their community, to bring spiritual teaching and outreach and to help empower the people of the community to identify and address their common concerns.
CHE does not operate as an "NGO" here in Uganda, although the ministry will often work with NGOs who wish to assist communities to address issues that are beyond their local capacity.
But the key focus of CHE is "Let's do what we can do to build our lives."