COMPASS

• Project Overview
• Objectives and Strategies
• Activities and Highlights
• Materials and Resources
• Contact Information

PROJECT OVERVIEW

In Nigeria, as in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, inadequate health care and basic education often go hand-in-hand with high levels of poverty. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, and more than two-thirds of its population lives on less than $2/day. In response to these economic and population pressures, access to quality education and health services is declining.

In partnership with the Federal Government of Nigeria, USAID launched the Community Participation for Action in the Social Sector (COMPASS) Project in 2004 to improve the quality of health care and education in Nigeria’s communities. The five-year project will run through 2009. COMPASS aims to reach approximately 23 million Nigerians in 51 Local Government Areas (LGAs) through community-led health and education initiatives in four states  (Bauchi, Kano, Lagos, Nasarawa) and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, with polio-eradication activities in an additional six states (Jigawa, Kaduna, Kebbi, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara). Led by Pathfinder International, COMPASS comprises five American organizations and four Nigerian partners and lays the foundation for sustainable improvements in reproductive health /family planning, child survival, and basic education.

CCP is leading the implementation of community mobilization, demand creation, communications and communication-support activities (a major cross cutting technical component of the project).

OBJECTIVES/STRATEGIES

COMPASS has been promoting community involvement and participation in strengthening social sector services, mobilizing groups for positive behavior change and advocating for improved health and education services. COMPASS uses two conceptual frameworks based on participatory problem solving approaches - the Community Action Cycle (CAC) and Partnership Defined Quality (PDQ). The CAC encourages community members to work together to identify and prioritize problems in their community, define and identify solutions to those problems, and take action to improve or remedy the situation. The process also includes a review of the progress made in order to adjust strategies and/or identify new problems.  PDQ is a similar methodology that involves service providers and community members using the CAC to work on specific quality issues at the health facility or school level. To encourage the active participation of communities, COMPASS has been mobilizing community members to establish two key community-based structures, namely: the Quality Improvement Teams (QITs) and the Community Coalitions (CCs).

• QITs are established at the facility level and consist of both service providers or teachers and community representatives working together to improve quality of health or educational services. These teams use the CAC approach to identify challenges with quality, work on possible solutions and act to solve the problems identified.
• CCs are formed at the community level and consist of all interested community members within a specific community. Representatives include Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) members, women groups, youth groups, community-based organizations, and QITs. Through the CAC process, CCs develop “rudimentary “action plans to address basic health and education issues in their communities. COMPASS provides technical guidance and helps to identify strategies for implementing the action plans.  More than 200 community coalitions have been established in COMPASS-supported states.
• Community coalitions are also supported to hold LGA forum meetings to address issues that cannot be solved at community level. These LGA forum meetings help CCs advocate for policy issues such as the inadequate number of female teachers and the exorbitant cost of ANC services that require the attention of high-level authorities. 

ACTIVITIES AND HIGHLIGHTS

An assessment carried out in April 2007 showed that, overall, health service utilization for family planning, antenatal care, facility deliveries, and routine immunization is considerably higher in facilities with CCs and QITs than in matched facilities without these community structures.

The contribution of the QITs and CCs to improving the infrastructure of health facilities and schools has been quite remarkable. Among individual member contributions, community donations and funds resulting from advocacy efforts with the LGA, COMPASS-supported communities leveraged over $1 million in 2006. This money has been used for a wide variety of infrastructure activities including construction of new primary health facilities and schools, renovation of existing facilities, toilet construction, electrification, digging boreholes for water, and provision of equipment and supplies such as furniture, blood pressure cuffs, medicine, school first aid kits, radios and batteries for interactive radio instruction, and exercise books and text books. In cases where COMPASS was supporting the renovation of facilities but funding was limited, the CCs/QITs provided matching funds to complete the job. In addition to fundraising and construction projects, the CCs and QITs have also been involved in other activities that contribute to the improvement of health and education services in the community. These include:

• Advocacy: Members of the coalitions organize themselves to advocate for public and private resources to address problems identified by their QITs.
• Sensitization: Coalition and QIT members organize activities to educate community members on important health and/or education issues. Targeting both men and women, they carry out house-to-house visits as well as group sessions, focusing on the importance of routine immunization (particularly polio) and promoting pre-natal care,  facility deliveries and  family planning.
• Improved provider – community relations: Through the process of listening to each other and working together to address the challenges and problems associated with service delivery, providers and clients develop a better understanding of the constraints that each faces, thus shifting the relationship from one of blame towards one of collaboration and mutual understanding.
• Supervision and monitoring: The coalitions and QITs have been involved with supervising the renovations carried out in their communities, including those funded by COMPASS. They also monitor health and education services, review routine data such as health service utilization and school absenteeism, and serve as ombudsmen in the case of complaints.
• Quality improvements: In health, QITs have been involved with improving confidentiality, reinforcing provider respect for clients, encouraging TBA referrals for unvaccinated children, and organizing community assistance for sanitation and water supply. In education, QITs have been involved with following up on absenteeism and non-attendance at school, drug prevention education, and accompanying classes during field trips and breaks. Both CCs and schools are regularly referring clients for health services.
  

MATERIALS AND RESOURCES

Compass Nigeria Publications

• Communication-support materials (booklets, posters and leaflets) to promote the use of services and help CCs and other community-based groups to implement their sensitization activities and reach various audiences
• Community guides to help CCs and community-based organizations to work more effectively and undertake their activities in a more systematic way. These guides include a simple pocket-sized booklet with key information on various CS, RH, ARH, and BE topics/issues to enlighten community members on key specific actions they can take to improve health and education in their communities.
• Radio program and spots to enlighten people on various health and education topics. The objective of broadcasting the radio programs is to reach women, men and adolescents with information and messages on key health and education topics (girls’ education, enrollment, retention, completion, quality of education, safe motherhood, child survival, child spacing, client and provider interaction and adolescent physical and mental health) in order to promote positive behaviors.
•  Training of Health Services Providers to help them improve their interpersonal and counseling skills and to help them promote themselves and the services they offer. 
• Job aids are also provided to Community Health Providers and Service Providers on various topics.
• Media trainings and media kit to enlighten reporters and motivate them to write success stories of community members struggling to improve their health and education needs.
• The community mobilization, communications and communication-support  department of the COMPASS Project represents a major source for the supply of communication-support materials (job aids, posters, leaflets, training and instructional manuals etc) for use by service providers in health and school facilities in the COMPASS-supported states and to other US-based Implementing Partners and Nigerian Partners.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Mabiala Ma-Umba
Senior Program Officer
111 Market  Place, Suite 310
Baltimore, MD 21202
mmabiala@jhuccp.org
(410) 659 6300

Kate Stratten
Senior Program Officer
111 Market  Place, Suite 310
Baltimore, MD 21202
Kstratte@jhuccp.org
(410) 659 6300

Bola Kusemiju
Deputy Chief of Party
COMPASS Project
35, Sowemimo Street
Asokoro, Abuja, Nigeria
Bkusemiju@compassnigeria.org
(234) 9 672 0021-2, 314 5206