Empowering Communities Through Engaged Learning: The Philosophy of Community-Based Education at CMHS

Bahir Dar University's College of Medicine and Health Sciences (CMHS) is deeply committed to a philosophy of education that extends beyond traditional classroom learning, directly engaging with and serving the community. This commitment is realized through a robust framework of community-based education programs, including the Developmental Team Training Program (DTTP), Team Training Program (TTP), and the comprehensive Community-Based Training Program (CBTP). These initiatives are not merely academic exercises; they are vital components of our mission to produce socially accountable healthcare professionals who are not only clinically competent but also deeply responsive to the pressing health and development needs of society.

Our community-based education philosophy is rooted in the belief that the most profound learning occurs when students are immersed in real-world challenges. By utilizing the community as an extended learning environment, we foster a unique, multidisciplinary, and problem-oriented approach to education. This involves a dynamic interplay between students, teachers, community members, and various sectors and agencies, ensuring that the educational process is collaborative and contextually relevant.

Through these programs, students are systematically equipped with a comprehensive set of practical skills and essential knowledge that goes beyond theoretical understanding. They learn to:

  • Identify Problems Autonomously: Students are trained to meticulously conduct baseline data collection, situation analyses, and discipline-based studies, enabling them to pinpoint critical community problems with accuracy. This involves surveying demographic, socio-economic, climatic, geographic, and cultural data, leading to a profound understanding of local challenges.
  • Design Innovative Solutions: Moving from problem identification to action, students are guided to conceptualize and design practical, sustainable solutions. This process involves critical thinking, strategic planning, and the development of actionable interventions tailored to the specific needs of the community.
  • Mobilize Community Resources and Raise Funds: A cornerstone of our philosophy is empowering students to engage with the community and stakeholders directly. They learn the vital skills of resource mobilization and, where appropriate, raising funds from within the community itself. This teaches them self-reliance and fosters a sense of shared ownership in addressing local issues, ensuring that solutions are community-driven and sustainable.
  • Implement and Handover Complete Projects: Our programs emphasize the full project lifecycle, from planning and intervention to follow-up and evaluation. Students actively participate in carrying out interventions on prioritized problems, demonstrating their capacity to translate plans into tangible results. Crucially, they learn the responsibility of handing over completed projects to the community or direct users, ensuring long-term impact and fostering community empowerment.

This integrated approach ensures that our graduates are not just healthcare providers but also community leaders, researchers, and advocates who are prepared for lifelong learning within the community context. By bridging the gap between academia and real-world challenges, CMHS's community-based education programs are cultivating a generation of professionals dedicated to serving and transforming society.

Community-Based Training Program (CBTP) 

The Community-Based Training Program (CBTP) at Bahir Dar University's College of Medicine and Health Sciences is an integrated institutional program designed to provide students with extensive learning experiences within the community. This program runs in phases from the first year through to graduation, with students assigned to the same locality in subsequent years to foster continuous engagement and understanding.

Background and Approach:

Community-Based Education (CBE) utilizes the community as a primary learning environment, involving students, teachers, community members, and various sectors and agencies throughout the educational process. The program is multidisciplinary and problem-oriented, employing a team approach to integrate training, service, and research. This exposure to real community life benefits both the students and the community.

The community-based learning activities follow a structured problem-solving approach, which includes:

  • Site selection
  • Developing investigation tools
  • Gathering, processing, and analyzing data
  • Listing and prioritizing problems
  • Drawing up action plans
  • Carrying out interventions, follow-up, and evaluation with stakeholder involvement

Goals:

The primary goals of the program are:

  • To train competent and responsive healthcare professionals in both clinical and preventive skills through community and stakeholder involvement.
  • To strengthen the training of socially accountable healthcare professionals, ensuring lifelong learning in the community by integrating training, research, and services.

Objectives:

The program aims to achieve the following objectives:

  • Train competent professionals responsive to societal needs.
  • Employ variety of learning approach including participatory, team learning approaches by taking into account the development needs of the community.
  • Involve the community in the problem identification and solving process, ensuring contextualization of the community-based education into the local context.
  • Provision of model intervention by engaging the community to deal with common problems with the local resources.
  • To work with government and non- government organization and contribute in improving the livelihood of the community.
  • To promote development through multidisciplinary & team approach.
  • Undertake community based research to identify and solve development problems.
  • Initiate, participate in local, national and international training research and development services.1

CBTP Phases and Activities:

The CBTP is structured into several phases (CBTP I, CBTP II, CBTP III, CBTP IV and CBTP V), each with specifically defined educational objectives.

  • CBTP I: Focuses on baseline data and situation analyses, including demographic data, common courses data, mapping and zoning. It also covers socio-economic data (education, health services, communication, power and energy, service rendering institutions), climatic and geographic data, and cultural issues, culminating in report writing and presentation in symposium.
  • CBTP II: Involves updating of data collected during phase I depending on the need. It includes discipline based study (based on the prerequisite course taken in class), action plan on priority problems (stakeholders’ involvement, resource mobilization), intervention on prioritized problems,2 and report writing and presentation in symposium.
  • CBTP III: Includes updating of data collected during phase I & II depending on the need. It involves discipline based study (based on the prerequisite course taken in class), action plan on priority problems (stake involvement, resource mobilization),3 intervention on prioritized problems, evaluation of the intervention (CBTP I and II), and report writing and presentation in symposium.
  • CBTP IV: Centers on problem based research, updating of data collected during phase I, II and III, discipline based study (based on the prerequisite course taken in classes in Year IV), preparation of action plan on priority problems (stakeholders’ involvement, resource mobilization), intervention on prioritized problems, evaluation,4 and writing a comprehensive final report.
  • CBTP V: Focuses on measuring the effect of changes due to health procedures introduced into the community and conducting simple problem oriented research, concluding with a comprehensive final report.

Roles and Responsibilities:

  • CBE-Director: Responsible for allocating resources pertaining to CBE, including electronic tools and stationary (flip chart and parker).
  • Supervisors: Attending the orientation, bringing students to the community, assisting students to simplify the work, availing themselves to the symposium/presentation, actively participating throughout the process, evaluating students on a continuous basis, evaluating students and submitting timely, and being a role model.
  • Team Leader (Student): Selected by the students, directly responsible to supervisory team leader, organizes, leads and plays a role model to other students, takes attendances in every day activity, assigns specific and individual tasks to members, leads team student member’s meetings, participates in evaluation of the students, ensures logistics, participates in all CBE activities and produce reports.
  • Student Team Rapporteur: Selected by the students, directly responsible to student’s team leader, organizes the students in the write-up process of the team report, compiles findings & job accomplished by the team in the symposium, assists the student team leader in leading and organizing activities, represents the student team leader during his absence, and presents the findings of the study during CBE symposium.
  • Individual Students: Should be disciplined, be punctual for the day to day activity, should discharge individual and group tasks assigned to him/her, should actively participate in group meetings, should participate in implementation and evaluation activities, should participate in all CBE activities and report writing, and should do all other tasks assigned to him/her by the group team leader, and full attendance (100%) is mandatory.

Evaluation:

Student evaluation is based on:

  • Progressive assessment (60%) by aggregate of supervisors.
  • Symposium presentation (20%) by CBTP-evaluator committee and CBE office.
  • Final Document (20%) by CBTP-evaluator committee and CBE office.

Recent Activities (Examples from CBTP-III, August 2024):

  • Sebtamit Team: Malaria prevention efforts, including the distribution of 40 ITN (Insecticide-Treated Nets). Activities also included addressing 3 ditches and 4 closed drainages.
  • Zenzelima Team: Focused on Under 5 Childhood Diarrheal Disease. Activities included screening for malnutrition and vaccination. From 173 selected houses with under 5 children checked, 38 (21.9%) were not fully vaccinated. A hygiene campaign resulted in 64 tipping taps made for 64 houses, and 240 "wuha-agar" (water or a related item) were distributed. House-to-house demonstrations on how to prepare ORS (Oral Rehydration Solution) at home were also conducted.
  • Kinbaba Team: Addressed diarrheal disease. Activities included constructing hand washing facilities at a school and demonstrating how to prepare home-made ORS.
  • School based health info dissemination: This involved general health information dissemination, likely within various schools.
  • @Teyima Primary School: Undertook renovation of toilets and constructed a hand washing facility. This hand washing facility was handed to an NGO, SPLASH, to finish it. The total population served by the Teyima Primary School activities was 1200.
  • @Shinbit primary school: Land fill preparation for dry waste disposal. The total population served by this activity was 1500.
  • Solid waste disposal @Selam Argiw Abinet school: Activities included cleaning and filling a disposal pit. The total population served by this activity was 2500.

Developmental Team Training Program (DTTP) 

Empowering Communities Through Integrated Learning, Service, and Research

The College of Medicine and Health Sciences (CMHS) at Bahir Dar University is proud to implement the Developmental Team Training Program (DTTP) as part of its Community-Based Education (CBE) philosophy. DTTP is a cornerstone initiative designed to bridge academic learning with community engagement, addressing real-world problems through multidisciplinary team efforts.

What is DTTP?

DTTP is a two-month (60-day) immersive training program implemented primarily in postgraduate studies. Launched in 2019 with Graduate MPH students, the program involves students, supervisors, and community stakeholders in a collaborative process of problem identification, solution planning, implementation, and evaluation.

DTTP Objectives

  • Train competent, socially accountable healthcare professionals.
  • Engage students in addressing societal and development needs.
  • Foster lifelong learning and participatory problem-solving.
  • Promote sustainable development through community involvement and resource mobilization.

Key Components

  • Team-based, Multidisciplinary Approach: Students from diverse health disciplines work together.
  • Real-World Engagement: Community members and local stakeholders are involved from planning to implementation.
  • Integrated Learning: DTTP blends academic research, practical intervention, and public service.

Activities and Process

  1. Orientation & Team Formation
  2. Site Selection and Situational Analysis
  3. Proposal and Tool Development
  4. Community Problem Identification & Prioritization
  5. Action Plan Design & Implementation
  6. Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting
  7. Symposium Presentation

Community Impact

Recent DTTP initiatives include:

  • Construction and maintenance of communal latrines in Zeleke, Gish Abay, and Sebatamit areas, benefiting over 1,000 people.
  • Community mobilization to prevent road traffic accidents and improve sanitation.
  • Collaboration with Woreda and town officers, local leaders, and NGOs for sustainable development.

Roles and Responsibilities

Students are expected to maintain discipline, teamwork, and active participation. Team leaders and rapporteurs manage organization, documentation, and leadership tasks. Supervisors guide the teams, evaluate performance, and ensure educational and ethical standards.

Evaluation and Accountability

Student performance is continuously assessed, with emphasis on participation, leadership, reporting, and community relations. Misconduct such as plagiarism or absenteeism is reported and addressed appropriately.

Team Training Program (TTP) 

Overview

TTP is part of the Community-Based Education (CBE) model, which uses the community as a learning environment involving:

  • Students
  • Teachers
  • Communities
  • Multiple Sectors and Agencies

CBE promotes a multi-disciplinary, team-based, problem-oriented approach, fostering real-life experience in community health and development.

Goals of TTP

  • Train competent and socially responsible health professionals
  • Equip students to live, learn, and work in teams within community settings
  • Integrate clinical and community-based training in a minimum six-week attachment

Objectives

  • Produce professionals responsive to community needs
  • Promote participatory, team-based learning
  • Empower communities to solve local development challenges sustainably
  • Collaborate with government and NGOs
  • Conduct community-based research and service programs at local, national, and international levels

CBE Strategy Components

  • CBTP – Community-Based Training Program
  • TTP – Team Training Program
  • DTTP – Development Team Training Program
  • SRP – Student Research Program

TTP Core Activities

1. Community Diagnosis

  • Select site, communicate with stakeholders
  • Prepare tools, map area, collect & analyze data
  • Design and implement interventions
  • Establish follow-up mechanisms

2. Health Institution Supervision

  • Plan and conduct supervision
  • Use checklists/logistics, report outcomes
  • Provide feedback to relevant bodies

3. Environmental Health Services

  • Inspect water sources, sanitation, waste handling
  • Evaluate public latrines and food establishments
  • Take corrective actions and educate stakeholders

4. School Health Services

  • Visual screening in schools
  • Inspect sanitation, classrooms, and playgrounds
  • Conduct student health checks and health education

5. Prison Health Services

  • Sanitation inspection, disease screening
  • Health education, disease prevention demonstrations
  • Communicate with prison management

6. Health Education

  • Identify health issues, plan health messages
  • Conduct education sessions with appropriate methods
  • Promote behavioral change and evaluate impact

7. Home Visits

  • Use checklists, build rapport, assess health status
  • Provide education and minor treatment
  • Refer serious cases, evaluate effectiveness

8. Health Center Clinical Activity

  • Deliver integrated services
  • Conduct diagnostics, referrals, disinfections
  • Report and consult appropriately

9. Mini-Project Implementation

  • Identify and solve 1–3 major local issues
  • Use local resources, implement with the community
  • Monitor, evaluate, and hand over to stakeholders

10. Fortnight Report & Seminars

  • Prepare biweekly reports and seminar presentations
  • Use teaching aids and involve stakeholders
  • Facilitate discussions and reflections

11. Documentation & Reporting

  • Use standard formats
  • Submit timely and complete reports

Roles and Responsibilities

Resident Supervisor

  • Lead and supervise students
  • Evaluate teaching, service, and clinical activities
  • Report to the College CBE Director

Student Team Leader

  • Organize and lead team, take attendance
  • Assign tasks, ensure logistics, participate in evaluation
  • Submit reports and represent students

Student Rapporteur

  • Support team leader in documentation and reporting
  • Present findings at the symposium

Logistics Personnel

  • Handle materials and supplies
  • Coordinate with supervisors on logistical needs

Student Expectations

  • 100% attendance (unless excused by CBE office)
  • Punctual, disciplined, and task-committed
  • Participate in all activities and reporting

Misconduct and Disciplinary Measures

  • Academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and disruptive behavior are punishable
  • Substance abuse, disrespect toward staff, and absence from duty are subject to disciplinary action
  • Damage or loss of materials must be reimbursed

Evaluation

  • Residents and senior supervisors assess students based on participation, reporting, and case management

Sample TTP Projects

📸 From 2014 E.C. field activities include:

  • Renovated communal toilets
  • Waste disposal improvements
  • School vision screenings
  • Public sanitation upgrades

Contact:

Tilahun Belete, Director of Community Engagement Directorate

Phone: +251 96 893 0473

Email:  tilahunbe100@gmail.com