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 ("wellshare- or the "organization") 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 refugees and immigrants in minnesota, where its headquarter office is located, as well as individuals living in under-resourced countries. Wellshare international works in close partnership with communities and healthcare providers to ensure that their joint efforts are defined by local needs and are sustainable. Because of its extensive overseas community health experience, including 39+ years of work in east africa, as well as significant experience in southeast asia and central america, wellshare is uniquely positioned to work both domestically in minnesota and the u.s. With the growing immigrant, refugee, and other under-served communities, as well as internationally. Over the past 19 years in minnesota, wellshare has worked on public health initiatives with somali, oromo, hmong, and karen (burmese) immigrants and refugees and is now extending its community-based health work to reach additional vulnerable and underserved communities, including the african american, latino, and american indian communities.”

“Domestic programming eliminating health disparities initiative (ehdi) wellshare international is working to reduce the risk factors for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke through ehdi program activities in order to reduce negative health outcomes. The program focuses on reducing unhealthy weight gain, as well as increasing the consumption of healthy food, increasing daily physical activity, and fostering an increased sense of wellbeing and trust through the services of community health workers (chws). 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, heart disease, and stroke. Activities in 2018 included conducting two full-day health-coaching trainings for chws. A six-week series of chronic disease self-management workshops (a stanford university evidence-based curriculum) was offered three times to adults in the somali community. Another evidence-based class, matter of balance, was offered once to somali elders to help reduce the risk of falls. Another fall-prevention class, tai ji quan, a 24-week evidence-based program, was offered once at the indian health board. Other ehdi activities included hypertension screening for east african adults. Over 250 adults have been screened for hypertension. The somali community is being disproportionately affected by diabetes, and wellshare is responding. The ehdi program also works with healthcare 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, 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 2018, wellshare continued to expand its work through the community health worker peer network program (the network). The chw peer network was created by wellshare in 2005, and reaches a statewide group of chws 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 quarterly professional development trainings for chws in the peer network. Currently, the network reaches over 600 chws, employers, and key stakeholders. Most trainings are recorded, archived, and posted online for later viewing by chws and other stakeholders who live in greater minnesota. In 2018, wellshare hosted two lunch-and-learns and two health coach trainings. Hypertension program in 2018, wellshare completed a pilot program with a grant from the minnesota department of health that was started in 2015. The hypertension program promotes linkages between health systems and community resources. Wellshare chws worked with clinics to set up a referral system and were able to complete 17 home visits with somali patients at risk of hypertension. Communities eliminating tobacco inequities: karen tobacco-free program wellshare received a grant from the center for prevention at blue cross and blue shield of minnesota 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 partne”

“International programming tanzania 'survive and thrive- and 'together for health' projects wellshare international continued its work in bariadi district and bariadi town, tanzania, in 2018. With funding from health evillages/tivity health, wellshare started a new project called together for health, which brought together health workers from hospitals/clinics and community health workers who work at the village level, to improve maternal, child, and reproductive health by using technology and mentorship to advance health knowledge, access to care, and quality of services. Key accomplishments in 2018 included: -engaging a the district/town and villages to support the project; -conducting a baseline survey of health knowledge and practices in the communities served; -training 38 community health workers and 10 health workers to use ipads and provide health education on key topics; and -engaging the community through 24,489 contacts (17,721 female, 6,768 male), in which community members learned about health issues, such as how to prevent cholera, when to take a newborn to the hospital, why delivering at a health facility is important, and the importance of immediate and exclusive breastfeeding, among many other topics. Work with survive and thrive/village community banking (vicoba) groups continued in 2018 with support from the lafferty family foundation, the mortenson family foundation, and individual contributions. Wellshare assisted 16 groups (including newly founded groups) and supported 395 survive and thrive group/vicoba members in health education, small-business skills training, and technical support to implement a village community- banking model. Group members were creative in using loans from the bank to develop and/or expand businesses, such as soap-making, agricultural projects, raising livestock, and many others, which successfully increased participants' income and allowed them to improve family nutrition and living conditions, cover school fees, and pay for medical care. Uganda family planning program wellshare international continued its long-term work in reproductive health in uganda in 2018. 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 the iganga, bugweri, and kumi districts of uganda. The project supports women and men of reproductive age (15-49 and 15-45, respectively), as well as primary beneficiaries, including the district health team, health center staff, and village health teams (vhts), who received capacity-building education and training around community-based family planning and access to injectable contraceptives (cba2i) using dmpa-im, dmpa-sc, and dmpa-sc via self-injection; emergency contraceptive pills (ecps); and adolescent sexual and reproductive health (asrh). In 2018, key achievements included: -at the international conference on family planning in kigali, rwanda, giving a short oral presentation on research results from a study of community-based provision of emergency contraceptive pills and presenting a poster on wellshare experiences training health workers on youth-friendly services. -training 70 vhts, 18 health workers, and 1 district health team member in dmpa-sg self-injection in iganga and bugweri districts. A total of 800 clients (589 bugweri, 211 iganga) trained in self-injection were competent to continue self-injection after the training. -hosting a visit by the usaid/washington dc community-based family planning technical advisor, who met with vhts and health workers trained in self- injection as well as self-injection and ecp clients. -attending more than 27 national (uganda) meetings to provide inputs on various aspects of community-based family planning. -contributing to a total 49,926.3 couple years of protection (cyp), a measure of family-planning efficacy. Additionally, from february to june 2018, wellshare implemented a”

“UGANDA”