ASTHA organised training for Community Paramedic Training Institutes on developing promotional strategies

Labour market insertion
01.06.2023

According to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)3 indicators, Bangladesh needs a staggering 420,000 paramedics.[1] Unfortunately, every year only around 1100 students are enrolled in Community Paramedic (CP) courses.[2] Effective promotion of the CP course is essential to raise awareness of CP courses and increase enrolment. However, the newly registered Community Paramedic Training Institutes (CPTIs) need guidance and support for promoting CP courses. To address their need, ASTHA organised a 4-day long training in Dhaka to develop the capacity of selected CPTIs on designing promotional strategies.

The training took place on 21st-24th May 2023 in Dhaka. 13 faculties from 5 selected CPTIs attended the training. The selected CPTIs are Image CPTI (Rangpur), Anowara Begum CPTI (Barisal), Hasna Hena CPTI (Gaibandha), White Pearl CPTI (Moulovibazar), Skeleton Advance CPTI (Bogura). The CPTIs were selected based on the Capacity Need Assessment (CNA) study conducted by ASTHA. According to the assessment, these CPTIs are at the nascent stage which means they are struggling to attract students. Therefore, among the 22 newly registered CPTIs, these 5 CPTIs mostly need guidance and support to design effective promotional strategies. The training was conducted by the professional trainers of BTRF who are specialised in branding and marketing. Dr. Zeenat Sultana, Managing Director, and Program Director of BTRF, was the lead trainer. She was joined by Dr. Shahidul Alam, Director of Program Implementation of BTRF, second lead trainer and Shafiqur Rahman, member and senior trainer of BTRF.

The objective of the training was to ensure that the CPTIs develop and execute a clear concept of the marketing and promotional activities by using various communication tools and materials. The 4 days of training covered different important topics of branding and marketing which would help the CPTIs to understand their customers better and attract them more effectively. The sessions included theoretical discussion, group work and presentation by the participants.

The participants were highly satisfied with the training. “We are very thankful for this training. “We believe this experience will help us to improve our CPTI”, said Dr. Arzina Afroz, faculty member, Skeleton Advance Institute of Community Paramedic, Bogura. “The 4-day long training will be very memorable and will act as a guide for us moving forward”- opined Meherun Nesa, Chairman, Anowara Begum Community Paramedic Institute, Barishal. The others have also expressed similar opinions and satisfaction as this was a very different kind of training, they have received however a very helpful one; and they have shown determination to take up the methods they have learnt and implement them in their CPTI’s promotions through organising events efficiently.

[1] Hussain, A.M.Z. (2021) ‘Public health care needs to be restructured’, New Age, 16 December. Available online.

[2] Obtained from ASTHA Project database.

This project is financed by Novartis, the Evi Diethelm Winteler Stiftung, and the Laguna Foundation, among other donors. It is part of the Swisscontact Development Programme, which is co-financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Bangladesh
Initial vocational education and training
High-quality healthcare services in rural areas
Achieving Sustainability Towards Healthcare Access (ASTHA) aims at contributing to the development and expansion of sustainable and high-quality healthcare at the community level by training young adults (50% women) from seven rural districts as skilled health workers. The ASTHA-project will improve the health and living conditions of the local...