Thousands of Egyptians are living healthier lives today thanks to a joint project between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Health and Population to improve the skills of over 700 Egyptian health educators. The project, which began in 2014 and completed this month, featured a combination of training, curriculum development, and media campaigns.

According to U.S. Embassy Cairo Chargé d’Affaires Thomas H. Goldberger, “We know how important healthcare is to the Government of Egypt and to the Egyptian people, and that’s why we made this investment and partnered with the Ministry of Health and Population in this project. We believe that this project has strengthened the Ministry’s ability to deliver effective health messages and address critical health issues.”

Through TV and radio campaigns, the Health Communications Capacity Collaborative project (HC3) has delivered hepatitis C prevention messages to a nationwide audience and created two university-based hepatitis C campaigns at Ain Shams and Minya Universities. The project established a new branch of the Health Technical Institute to train health educators and developed a two-year pre-service curriculum and reference manual. To ensure sustainability, the project fostered important public-private partnerships in the health sector and established a web portal to provide up-to-date health messaging to health educators.   

For nearly 40 years, USAID has worked with the Egyptian people to improve healthy behaviors by supporting maternal and child health, family planning, nutrition, immunization, and disease prevention activities. The HC3 project is part of the $30 billion that the American people have invested in Egypt through USAID since 1978.