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 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 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 36+ 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 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 evidence-based early childhood family home visiting wellshare commenced a new early childhood family home visiting program in may 2019. Using the parents as teachers model, wellshare parent educators provide support to families to: -help parents understand child development and improve parenting skills, -identify developmental delays early, -provide community-building and knowledge of resources, and, ultimately, -improve children's school readiness. In the current program, wellshare will reach 72 somali families with children prenatal to 5.9 years with two years of programming. Community health workers - bridging the cultural divide in 2019, wellshare continued to provide the community health worker ("chw") peer network program. The chw peer network was created by wellshare in 2005 and reaches a statewide 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 quarterly professional development trainings for chws in the peer network. Currently the network reaches over 600 chws, employers, and key stakeholders. In 2019, wellshare hosted four lunch-and-learns. East african smoke-free program wellshare international's tobacco-free communities east african smoke-free program, funded by the minnesota department of health ("mdh"), aims to reduce the harm caused by tobacco and secondhand smoke among somali and east african children, youth, and young adults. Established in 2013, the program's objectives are: 1.to complete a community-based assessment to strengthen minnesota african-americans' (somali/east african) community capacity and involvement around tobacco control through community engagement and a community advisory committee. 2.to increase health care providers' awareness of the hookah problem in minneapolis and st. Paul through education and outreach. 3.to develop key lessons learned and recommendations for future somali tobacco/hookah programming. 4.to work with somali/east african youth to increase their focus on healthy behaviors to promote both prevention and cessation efforts (cigarettes and hookah). 5.to develop a peer-to-peer outreach model with community health workers to integrate a "call it quits" referral process. 6.to increase the number of somali/east african community members in minneapolis and st. Paul protected by smoke-free and commercial tobacco- free indoor and outdoor policies. After-school programming for east african youth - 'the young achievers' the young achievers, a wellshare after-school program for east african youth, offers a constructive environment for somali youth to learn, be creative, interact with positive adults, learn skills to prepare them for employment, and prepare them for higher education by working for their community on public health issues. This program is conducted in partnership with the minneapolis public schools and franklin library. The group is youth-led and our somali staff mentors the youth to develop creative projects in order to send positive messages to their east african peers. East african and karen refugee reproductive health program wellshare's spacing pregnancies program for east african and karen communities ("speak") initiative includes two projects: the somali child spacing program and the karen family planning program. Using a community- based, client-centered approach, somali and karen community health workers work with their community, invested stakeholders and partners, and local providers and professionals in hopes that somali and karen communities in minn”

“International programming tanzania 'survive and thrive groups- and 'together for health' projects wellshare international continued to work in bariadi district and bariadi town, tanzania, in 2019. With funding from health evillages and the lafferty family foundation, wellshare continued its "together for health" program that utilizes video technology on ipads to deliver health education messages through health workers from hospital/clinics and community health workers (who work at the village level) to improve health knowledge, access to care, and quality of services. In 2019, wellshare had 92,208 client contacts (70,926 females, 21,282 males). Wellshare also screened 264 women for cervical cancer; 34 screened positive, of which 17 were diagnosed with cancer and were referred for treatment. Work with survive and thrive/village community banking ("vicoba") groups continued with support from individual contributions, the lafferty family foundation, and the mortenson family foundation in 2019. Wellshare assisted 11 active groups and supported 327 survive and thrive group/vicoba members in health education, small-business skills training, and technical support to implement a village community-banking model. An additional 12 groups were reforming or new. Findings from a survey of survive and thrive group/vicoba participants showed: 70% of participants vs. 34% of controls believed "my life will be better in the future-; 93% of participants vs. 69% of controls indicated "i can control my finances-; and, 76% of participants vs. 39% of controls thought "my children will have more opportunity for a better life than me." uganda family planning program wellshare international's advancing community-based access to injectable contraceptives program (2014-2019), funded by usaid/jsi through advancing partners & communities ("apc"), worked to scale up access to counseling and contraceptive choice in iganga, bugweri, and kumi districts of uganda. In 2019, wellshare along with district and apc partners: -carried out scientific implementation research to assess aspects of community-based self-administered injectable contraceptives. Research findings are currently in publication by fhi 360. -disseminated findings at events including: -a meeting with development partners from the bill and melinda gates foundation and the children's investment fund foundation and delegates from myanmar, kenya, and zambia. -a site visit to childfund zambia to assist in advocacy planning for country-level introduction and scale-up of community-based emergency contraceptives. -the apc national dissemination meeting where wellshare shared self- injection and emergency contraception results along with briefs, protocols, and job aides developed over the life of project. Over the life of project, wellshare contributed to 271,468 couple-years of protection.”

“UGANDA”