Building the Capacity of Low Literacy Community-level Providers to Offer Health Services to Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Communities in Northeast Kenya

Save the Children, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, partnered with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Centre for Behaviour Change Communication on the Nomadic Health Project (NHP). This 4-year (2018- April 2022) project sought to increase use of quality family planning (FP) services among nomadic and semi-nomadic populations in Kenya. Despite making up 60% of the population of Wajir and Mandera counties, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities have low access to health services, and women in these communities have high maternal mortality rates, high fertility rates and low uptake of health services, including use of family planning. Due to limited awareness, social norms that do not support the use of modern contraception, and long distances to health facilities, facility visits for non-emergency services – such as for family planning – are of lower priority. Furthermore, with general population literacy rates of 24% and 30% in Wajir and Mandera counties respectively, there is limited availability of skilled health service providers in areas where nomadic and semi-nomadic populations reside. This brief describes NHP’s approach to provider capacity building for low-literacy level community health volunteers, in order to strengthen access to and provision of health services for mobile populations in Wajir and Mandera counties.