Overview

The Tuberculosis Control Program for the Central Asia Republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), was a five-year project funded by USAID to address Tuberculosis (TB) services. Led by Project Hope, the program was designed to strengthen political commitment and clinical capacity for universal awareness, availability and quality of TB services. CCP’s role was to provide training and technical assistance in communication strategy design, materials development, implementation, and project evaluation.

Accomplishments

• Developed and implemented national tuberculosis communication strategies for each country in the CAR region through in-country trainings and technical support.

• Provided interactive trainings on communication strategy development, research and monitoring, materials design, pretesting and development.

• Created and provided training on health education and interpersonal counseling (IPC) to health providers and trainings for journalists and village leaders. This training was continued throughout the region and then built upon in each country. For example in Turkmenistan participants including TB specialists from all five velayats and representatives of the TB Faculty and the Press Center of MOHMIT attended a training which was followed by a three-day training on counseling of TB patients in Ashgabat and Balkanabat.

• Provided workshops for communication specialists and service providers in all 5 countries in the CAR region on the design and dissemination of materials including print, audio and video materials to support the project. Participants went on to produce public service announcements for the general population on TB, a flipchart for providers on TB counseling with illustrations, radio/TV messages, brochures and leaflets to increase awareness for TB among other materials.