ICT Skills and Internet Access Help Families in Rural Moldova Live Healthier Lives

In Comrat, Moldova, doctors are showing how IT training can improve a community and its health. On May 5, Comrat’s Center of Family Doctors (CFD) led presentations at a local clinic as part of the “Support health reforms to strengthen primary care” project. The project is aimed at educating the community on healthier lifestyles.

While working on the project, five members of the CFD sought training at Comrat’s IATP center beginning in late 2008, attending training sessions affiliated with IATP’s MedIT project. Through these training series, targeted toward medical professionals, they learned basic computer skills, how to efficiently search for information on the internet, and how to use the information they found. Most importantly, they used their new IT skills to research how to find for donors online and write project proposals. With the help of the IATP center’s Administrator, Iana Rusu, CFD submitted an application and won its first grant.

As a result of the training and assistance they received through IATP, the Center of Family Doctors received financial support from the Eurasia Foundation - Moldova. This grant supports CFD’s project to reduce disease and illness in children and teenagers by creating dialogue between medical professionals, young adults, and parents, and promoting a healthy lifestyle for youth and the whole community. Speaking about the importance of health, the Center of Family Doctors’ manager Bargan Liubovi said: “The health of Moldovan citizens as a whole and of Gagauzia in particular is not created only by good healthcare and high salaries for medical professionals, and not only by an abundance of medicines in drugstores, but also a correct way of life. In solving the problems caused by people making unhealthy choices, it is necessary to involve the whole community to create solutions. With the support of the Department of Education of Gagauzia, we plan to introduce open classes on healthy lifestyle choices on a permanent basis.”

The Department of Education of Gagauzia, itself an IATP partner, plays an important role in the project’s implementation. The Department of Education supports many project activities, holding outdoor seminars and contests on healthy lifestyles, and publishing information booklets such as, "How to Have a Healthy Summer Vacation." This successful collaboration will continue; the Comrat IATP Center continues to support the project by providing technical assistance and free internet access. As project trainer Elena Fileva said: “We won’t stop on what we have reached; we shall work on other projects. A group of young family doctors began a step-by-step training at the IATP center and we can surely say that we shall win another grant project proposal in the next year.”