# Health leaders share practical solutions at Teach to Reach forum

“We would like to strengthen the capacity of community health promoters and align with global efforts in health education,” said Alicia Sheringham from Kenya’s national association for community health workers (ARCHVOG) during the December 5 Leaders and Partners Forum. Her organization, like many others joining Teach to Reach 11, aims to connect local health needs with broader health initiatives.

The forum brought together health workers from community clinics to national programs to share what works in their communities. This continues the peer learning approach that engaged over 21,000 participants in June 2024, with 80% working at district and facility levels.

## Real challenges, real solutions

In Nigeria’s Bauchi State, Ibilola Atureta explained how Glorious Elixir Foundation conducts medical outreach: “We do medical outreaches to some communities here. Teach to Reach has exposed me to community and collaboration we can learn from ourselves.”

Small group discussions revealed common challenges across borders. Bernard Oteno, whose year-old organization works on malaria prevention in Kenya, noted their main barrier: “The main challenge we still have is funding, because it’s just a small organization that has about 50 people, community health workers coming together.”

## Learning from each other

In structured networking sessions, participants shared specific solutions despite technical challenges. One group discussion included experiences from Ghana about staffing issues, vaccine availability challenges in Abuja, and efforts to involve community health workers in decision-making in Kenya.

Dr. Mahesh Bhatt, working in India’s Himalayan region, described the value of these connections: “If somebody is doing some work on immunization in other part of the world, somebody else is also doing the same thing - they can connect with each other and discuss the issues and barriers as well as the breakthroughs.”

## Next steps

The forum preceded sessions focusing on:

- Nigeria’s immunization collaborative

- Malaria prevention and control with RBM Partnership

- Climate change health impacts with Grand Challenges Canada

Organizations interested in participating can learn more through the conference platform. There is no cost for locally-led organizations serving community needs.

The forum demonstrates how connecting health workers across borders helps share practical solutions to common challenges. As Chinwe Enechukwu noted after a networking session: “It was a wonderful room. I would love to go back and continue with the discussion.”

An AI-generated dialogue exploring The Geneva Learning Foundation’s progress in 2024

This experimental AI-generated podcast demonstrates a novel approach to exploring complex learning concepts through structured dialogue. Based on TGLF’s 2024 end-of-year message and supplementary materials, the conversation examines their peer learning model through a combination of concrete examples and theoretical reflection. The dialogue format enables exploration of how knowledge emerges through structured interaction, even in AI-generated content.

Experimental nature and limitations: This content is being shared as an exploration of how AI might contribute to learning and knowledge construction. While based on TGLF’s actual 2024 message, the dialogue includes AI-generated elaborations that may contain inaccuracies. However, these limitations themselves provide interesting insights into how knowledge emerges through interaction, even in artificial contexts.

Pedagogical value and theoretical implications:

1. Structured knowledge construction: The conversational format illustrates how knowledge can emerge through carefully structured dialogue, even when artificially generated. This mirrors TGLF’s own insights about how structure enables rather than constrains learning.

2. Multi-level learning: The dialogue operates on multiple levels:

- Direct information sharing about TGLF’s work

- Modeling of reflective dialogue

- Meta-level exploration of how knowledge emerges through interaction

- Integration of concrete examples with theoretical reflection

1. Network effects in learning: The conversation demonstrates how different types of knowledge (statistical, narrative, theoretical, practical) can be woven together through dialogue to create deeper understanding. This parallels TGLF’s observations about how learning emerges through structured networks of interaction.

We invite listeners to consider:

- How dialogue enables exploration of complex ideas

- The role of structure in enabling knowledge emergence

- The relationship between concrete examples and theoretical understanding

- The potential and limitations of AI in supporting learning processes

This experiment invites reflection not just on the content itself, but on how knowledge and understanding emerge through structured interaction - whether human or artificial. Your insights about how this format affects your understanding will help inform future explorations of AI’s role in learning.

What aspects of the dialogue format enhanced or hindered your understanding? How did the interplay of concrete examples and reflective discussion affect your learning? We welcome your thoughts on these deeper questions about how learning happens through structured interaction.

We will publish a selection of your TGLF stories submitted by 5 January 2025.

Looking ahead to 2025, we’re excited to build on this momentum together.

While we know this is a difficult time for many colleagues, particularly those serving communities affected by crisis and conflict, we hope you can find moments of peace and connection.

We deeply appreciate your commitment to learning and leading change.

Together, we are showing that new ways of learning and connecting can strengthen health and hope in communities worldwide.

More than that, we’re demonstrating that when we rethink how learning happens, we can unlock unprecedented possibilities for positive change.

Wishing you renewed energy and inspiration for the journey ahead.

Reda Sadki

The Geneva Learning Foundation

PS You can learn more from experiences shared on our YouTube, Telegram, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook channels. Are you following us?

Join us for this Teach to Reach dialogue between research and experience, with Dr Marina Romanello, the Countdown’s Executive Director.

Register now for this special event https://bit.ly/TeachToReach11

The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change brings the data. Health workers bring the stories.

Teach to Reach is the world’s largest peer learning platform for health workers.

24,583 health workers – primarily government staff from Africa, Asia, and Latin America – on the frontlines of climate change and health joined the eleventh edition on 5-6 December 2024.

How do The Lancet Countdown’s global findings align with what health workers observe first-hand in their communities?

How might scientific data and health worker experiences combine to deepen our understanding of climate change’s health impacts?

To end malaria, we must empower the people closest to the problem – health workers in affected communities.

A special event organized by The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) in partnership with RBM Partnership to End Malaria brought together health workers from every malaria-endemic country to share firsthand experiences fighting malaria.

Over 1,700 health professionals (619 francophone and 1,096 anglophone) registered for this bilingual event, which connected practitioners across language barriers from high-burden countries including Nigeria, DRC, Kenya, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon.

The partnership aims to integrate community-based health workers’ insights into global malaria elimination strategies.

Health workers shared powerful testimonials and practical experiences:

- Impacts of extreme weather and flooding on disease transmission patterns

- Growing drug resistance concerns and supply chain disruptions

- Innovative community engagement strategies for prevention

- Successes and challenges in vaccine introduction

- Cultural barriers to early treatment seeking

- Local adaptations of bed net distribution methods

- Strategies for reaching remote communities, especially during floods

- Special approaches for protecting pregnant women and children

This enabled meaningful exchange despite geographical and technological barriers.

This innovative format aimed to enable authentic exchange of practical, experiential knowledge that complements scientific expertise, guidelines and plans.

The event is part of TGLF’s peer learning to action process that includes:

1. Structured pre-event knowledge sharing through targeted questions

2. Direct exchange and network building during events

3. Post-event support to turn insights into action through facilitated planning and implementation

For global health funders and malaria partners, this model offers a scalable approach to strengthening elimination efforts through locally-led action.

Research has shown it can accelerate implementation of new approaches by up to 7x compared to traditional methods, with particular effectiveness in fragile contexts.

The special event also demonstrated how digital platforms can enable meaningful practitioner exchange at scale.

By connecting those closest to the challenges with those shaping global strategy, such exchanges help ensure malaria elimination efforts are grounded in local realities while building health workers’ capacity to lead change in their communities.

This is a replay of the Special Event recorded on 10 December 2024.

To end malaria, we must empower the people closest to the problem – health workers in affected communities.

A special event organized by The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) in partnership with RBM Partnership to End Malaria brought together health workers from every malaria-endemic country to share firsthand experiences fighting malaria.

Over 1,700 health professionals (619 francophone and 1,096 anglophone) registered for this bilingual event, which connected practitioners across language barriers from high-burden countries including Nigeria, DRC, Kenya, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon.

The partnership aims to integrate community-based health workers’ insights into global malaria elimination strategies.

Health workers shared powerful testimonials and practical experiences:

- Impacts of extreme weather and flooding on disease transmission patterns

- Growing drug resistance concerns and supply chain disruptions

- Innovative community engagement strategies for prevention

- Successes and challenges in vaccine introduction

- Cultural barriers to early treatment seeking

- Local adaptations of bed net distribution methods

- Strategies for reaching remote communities, especially during floods

- Special approaches for protecting pregnant women and children

This enabled meaningful exchange despite geographical and technological barriers.

This innovative format aimed to enable authentic exchange of practical, experiential knowledge that complements scientific expertise, guidelines and plans.

The event is part of TGLF’s peer learning to action process that includes:

1. Structured pre-event knowledge sharing through targeted questions

2. Direct exchange and network building during events

3. Post-event support to turn insights into action through facilitated planning and implementation

For global health funders and malaria partners, this model offers a scalable approach to strengthening elimination efforts through locally-led action.

Research has shown it can accelerate implementation of new approaches by up to 7x compared to traditional methods, with particular effectiveness in fragile contexts.

The special event also demonstrated how digital platforms can enable meaningful practitioner exchange at scale.

By connecting those closest to the challenges with those shaping global strategy, such exchanges help ensure malaria elimination efforts are grounded in local realities while building health workers’ capacity to lead change in their communities.

This is the English-language recording of the Special Event recorded on 10 December 2024.

Join us for the live stream of Teach to Reach 11's morning sessions on December 5, 2024, where over 23,000 health professionals from 70+ countries come together to share experiences and drive positive change in global health.

Request your invitation: https://www.learning.foundation/teachtoreach

Need the direct link to join Teach to Reach 11? Visit: https://bit.ly/TeachToReach11

Why participate in Teach to Reach? Follow this link https://redasadki.me/2024/10/03/why-participate-in-teach-to-reach-11/

Whether you are a community health worker, program manager, or global health professional, these sessions offer valuable perspectives on tackling today's most urgent health challenges through collaborative learning and local action.

This stream is for the English session on Thursday morning. While you cannot participate directly in the networking, you can share your thoughts and experiences in the comments. Our team reads all comments and will incorporate your insights into the ongoing discussions.

Stay tuned for another live stream in the afternoon featuring sessions on immunization, malaria prevention, and climate change impacts on health.

Join us for the live stream of Teach to Reach 11's afternoon sessions on December 5, 2024.

Schedule (all times UTC+1):

13:00-13:45 - Nigeria Immunization Agenda 2030 Collaborative

14:00-14:30 - Preview: Health workers unite to end malaria

14:30-15:30 - Climate change and Health

15:30-16:30 - Networking Session

Request your invitation: https://www.learning.foundation/teachtoreach

Need the direct link to join Teach to Reach 11? Visit: https://bit.ly/TeachToReach11

Why participate in Teach to Reach? Follow this link https://redasadki.me/2024/10/03/why-participate-in-teach-to-reach-11/

Whether you are a community health worker, program manager, or global health professional, these sessions offer valuable perspectives on tackling today's most urgent health challenges through collaborative learning and local action.

This stream is for the English session on Thursday afternoon. While you cannot participate directly in the networking, you can share your thoughts and experiences in the comments. Our team reads all comments and will incorporate your insights into the ongoing discussions.

If you missed the morning sessions, you can find recordings on our channel. Stay engaged with health professionals from over 70 countries as we work together to strengthen local health systems and drive positive change in our communities.

Ahead of Teach to Reach 11, you are invited to join REACH, the new network for leaders of local government health agencies and civil society organizations.

This REACH session is open to everyone. It will include:

1. an information briefing and

2. a networking session to meet fellow REACH leaders from other countries.

Learn more about REACH: New leadership network connects health organizations tackling common challenges

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-leadership-network-connects-health-organizations-zymoe/

To join the REACH network, your organization will need to become a Teach to Reach Partner.

Instructions on how to become a Partner will be shared during the session.

You are welcome to share this opportunity with other organizations that are working for the good of your community.