AHEAD, Inc. (Adventures In Health, Education & Agricultural Development, Inc)

Description

AHEAD was founded in 1981 by Dr. Irving C. Williams, a pediatrician and public health specialist, and his wife Elvira Felton Williams, to provide hands-on, people-to-people assistance to underserved communities. Over the past 19 years, AHEAD has focused its attention in the Shinyanga Region of Tanzania, which is located in the north central part of the country, 80 miles south of Lake Victoria. AHEADâ s headquarters is in the village of Mwanhuzi, where it has a small office and house. A team of six nurses travels daily to remote villages to provide essential health care, otherwise nonexistent for the villagers. Mothers walk for miles to bring their children for Village Health Outreach Day, often a baby on the back and one or two toddlers in tow. The Health Outreach Program provides immunizations for infants, children and women, conducts growth monitoring; implements nutrition intervention for malnourished children, provides antenatal care for women, provides family planning services, and conducts health education sessions for mothers and fathers. AHEAD also conducts training workshops for Village Health Workers (VHW), Primary Health Committees (PHC), and other health providers. AHEADâ s Teen Action Project (TAP) provides a much needed health prevention program, including HIV/AIDS, for pre-adolescents and adolescents. All programs and projects are implemented at the community level and involve the beneficiaries in all aspects of planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation in order to assure sustainable impact.