Wellshare International

“Reviewed by board of directors prior to filing.”

“Monitored and enforced by board of directors annually.”

“Approved by board of directors annually.”

“Governing documents are made available to the public upon request.”

“The mission of wellshare international is to advance sustainable community health around the world. Wellshare international focuses its resources where it can have the greatest impact on the health of underserved and vulnerable populations. This includes refugee and immigrants in minnesota, where its headquarter office is located, as well as individuals living in developing countries. Wellshare international works in close partnership with communities and health care providers to ensure that their joint efforts are defined by local needs and are sustainable. Because of its extensive overseas community health experience, including 37+ years in east africa as well as significant experience in southeast asia and central america, wellshare is uniquely positioned to work both internationally and domestically with the growing immigrant and refugee communities in minnesota. Over the past 16 years in minnesota, wellshare has worked on public health initiatives with somali, oromo, hmong, and karen (burmese) immigrant and refugees and is now extending its community-based health work to reach additional vulnerable and underserved communities including the african-american, latino, and native american communities.”

“The purpose of wellshare's ehdi program is to create sustainable, culturally-appropriate approaches and tools to support at-risk individuals and communities in the twin cities. Wellshare chws work with the community to promote behavior changes that will reduce the risk of diabetes. Activities in 2016 included conducting 6 trainings for chws related to preventive health including pre-diabetes, diabetes and using appropriate nutrition tools for clients with chronic disease. A six-week series of chronic disease self- management workshops (a stanford university evidence-based curriculum) was offered twice to elders in the somali community training with over 30 participants. Other activities included an eight-week series of falls prevention workshops for elders training 26 participants including african americans, somalis, native americans, and caucasian americans. Our ehdi program also works with health care providers to build capacity for supporting patients along their path to optimal health. By offering training to physicians and community health workers, wellshare's ehdi program is helping to build the workforce capacity needed to reduce health disparities and improve culturally competent care. Another component of the eliminating health disparities initiative (ehdi) funded by the minnesota department of health center for health equity is the minnesota community health worker peer network (see below for more information). Community health workers - bridging the cultural divide in 2016, wellshare continued to expand its work through the chw peer network program. The chw peer network was created by wellshare in 2005 and reaches a state-wide group of community health workers serving diverse communities. Wellshare hosts a moderated network mailing list and provides in-service professional development training opportunities to chws. The network sends out electronic (email) updates including chw job announcements, training information, and advocacy opportunities provided by chws and other stakeholders. Each year, wellshare surveys chw members about their educational needs in order to determine trainings that are most relevant to their work. Based on survey results, wellshare hosts bi- monthly professional development trainings for chws in the peer network. Currently the network reaches over 500 chws, employers, and key stakeholders. Trainings are recorded, archived, and posted online for later viewing by chws and other stakeholders who live in greater minnesota. Hypertension program in 2016, wellshare received an extension grant from the minnesota department of health for the pilot program that was started the prior year. The hypertension program promotes linkages between health systems and community resources. Wellshare community health workers reached out to the somali community to provide screening for high blood pressure, identifying those who may or may not have prediabetes or who may be at high risk for type 2 diabetes. The program raised awareness and provided health education about the dangers of high blood pressure in the somali community. Two somali wellshare international community health workers (chws) screened almost 200 community members of whom 35% were hypertensive and referred to primary care providers in the community. Preceding and following the election, however, the chw began to receive much higher blood pressure numbers overall. Communities eliminating tobacco inequities: karen tobacco free program wellshare received a grant from the blue cross blue shield of minnesota center for prevention to educate the karen community on the harms of tobacco and to eliminate the use of tobacco in indoor and outdoor settings. The karen tobacco free program (ktfp) is a partnership with the karen organization of minnesota and engages the entire community. Two karen community health workers and a program manager consult with karen religious leaders and communities to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services. Ac”

“In uganda in 2016. Advancing community-based access to injectable contraceptives, funded by usaid/jsi through advancing partners & communities (apc), worked to scale up access to counseling and contraceptive choice in iganga and kumi districts. The project supports women and men of reproductive age (15-49 and 15-45, respectively) as well as primary beneficiaries, including district health team, health center staff and vhts, who received capacity building and training around community-based family planning and community-based access to injectable contraceptives (cba2i) using depo im and sayana press (sp), emergency contraceptive pills (ecps) and adolescent sexual and reproductive health (asrh). In 2016, key achievements included: "scaling up community-based family planning services into five new sub- counties. "conducting a baseline assessment on youth friendly health services provision and training 44 health workers from 15 sub-counties in adolescent sexual and reproductive health services provision. "refresher training health workers and established vhts in 10 sub-counties in emergency contraceptive pills (ecp) and community dialogues for family planning social and behavior change following the adaptation of the path training manual resources of ecp programming toolkit (2004) into a stand- alone ecp training program. "developing, testing and disseminating a job aide and fact sheet on emergency contraceptive pills and supporting integration of ecps into the contraceptive method mix through participation at various national level meetings.”

“UGANDA”

“Consultants - domestic 165,344 12,207 2,058 consultants - international 12,813 0 0 total 178,157 12,207 2,058”