Teach to Reach 12

Meet, network, and learn with people who work for health from all over the world.

What is Teach to Reach?

Teach to Reach is a learning platform, a global network, and a community. We challenge the old way of learning, where experts in rich countries tell health workers what to do. Here, we believe the most powerful knowledge comes from your daily work.

• It is for you. Most of our members work for health, just like you.
• You are both teacher and learner. Teach to Reach is a space for health workers to learn from each other.
• A new way to learn. This is not a classroom. It is a learning journey where you share what you know and learn from the real work of others.
• A global community. Join colleagues from over 90 countries, with most working at the local level in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• More than an event. It is a continuous learning journey with live online events, ongoing conversations, and shared resources.

Who is this for?

Teach to Reach is for everyone who works for health in their community. This includes:

• Health workers in communities. This includes community health workers, nurses, midwives, doctors, and public health workers.
• Health leaders in districts and regions. This includes health managers and other staff.
• Health leaders at the national level.
• Community members who work for health. This includes volunteers, leaders, and anyone else who is concerned about the health of their community.

How can Teach to Reach help you?

Get practical help for the health challenges you face.

Top 5 reasons to join Teach to Reach

Teach to Reach helps you become a better health worker and a stronger leader. What you learn here will help you and your community. Everything that is shared is given back to the community to help everyone.

1. Develop as a leader. Sharing your experience helps you think more deeply about your work. You build critical thinking skills that help you deliver better results.
2. Learn what works. You get practical ideas that you can use in your daily work. 97 out of 100 people who join learn something new that they use in their work.
3. Grow your support network. You will make friends with other health workers from around the world. They can support you and help you with your challenges. You can help them too.
4. Feel stronger in your work. Health workers say that Teach to Reach helps them feel more motivated and confident.
5. Drive real change. This is not just about talking; it is about doing. 97% of participants learn something new they can use in their work.

What you get from Teach to Reach

Everything that is shared is given back to the community in different ways so that everyone can benefit.

• Insights Live. These are short sessions where we discuss what we are learning – and continue to share experience and support each other solve the challenges we face, together.
• Podcasts: We also make audio recordings of all our sessions. You can listen to them like a radio station, but on your phone. This uses very little internet data. This is especially useful if you suffer from poor connectivity.

If you miss a live event, you can catch up on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

We give back to the community.

• Experiences shared. We collect all the stories that health workers share with us. We put them into books called “Experiences Shared” that we give back to everyone. This way, you can see what your colleagues from all over the world shared.
•  Insights reports. We study all the shared experiences to find the most important ideas and lessons. We share these reports with the community and with partners. You can share them with colleagues who did not participate – to show how they can benefit too.
• Peer learning courses: Everything we learn as a community gets turned into structured courses. You can join a course to study what colleagues from all over the world. The focus of each course is to help you make sense of the challenges you face. This can help you figure out what you can do to change things.

The learning from Teach to Reach continues long after the live event.

How does Teach to Reach work?

Your learning journey with Teach to Reach starts when you request your invitation.

1. You get questions. We send you questions in your email. You only answer the questions where you have a story to tell.
2. You share your story. Telling your story helps you think about what you have learned from your work. If you share at least one story, you become our Guest of Honor.
3. You learn from others. We collect all the stories and share them back with everyone. This is where you start learning from your colleagues.
4. Everyone meets online. We have a live online event where you can meet, network, and learn with other health workers. You can ask questions and share ideas.
5. You stay connected. After the event, we ask you what you learned. You are now part of the community. You can continue to learn from and support each other. You will receive new invitations to continue your learning.

Certification

You can earn an Official Letter to certify your learning.

At Teach to Reach, we believe that learning comes from sharing experience and supporting each other. That is why we give certificates for sharing what you know and what you have learned.

There are two ways to earn this Letter:

1. by sharing your experience before the live event, or
2. by completing a questionnaire after the event where you write about what you learned.

Before Teach to Reach

1. Answer questions about your experience.

2. Tell us what problems you need help with.

3. Learn how other health workers solve problems.

4. Get ready to meet new people.

During Teach to Reach

1. Listen to other health workers share their stories.
2. Talk one-on-one with health workers from other countries.
3. Join group discussions about health topics.
4. Meet people who face the same challenges as you.

After Teach to Reach

1. Watch recordings of the sessions you missed.
2. Use what you learned in your own work.
3. Share how the programme helped you.
4. Earn a certificate by sharing your experience.
5. Keep in touch with the people you met.

What are the topics at Teach to Reach?

Teach to Reach does not have a fixed list of topics.

The agenda is created by you, the community, and our partners. We focus on the health challenges that are most important to the people you serve.

Health problems are often connected.

• A person’s health is not just about one disease.
• This is why our community has explored many different topics.
• It allows us to learn from each other across different health areas, countries, and job roles.

Over the years, our community has chosen to work on many different health problems.

This shows that we are ready to face any challenge together.

• We started with immunization – and Teach to Reach still has sessions because vaccination is part of primary health care.
• Since 2021, we have explored many other topics that matter to the communities we serve.

Your challenges guide our learning. At Teach to Reach, what matters to you, matters to all of us.

Peer learning is how we learn at Teach to Reach.

It means that we learn from and support each other to solve real problems. It is a way of learning that respects both what you know from your daily work and what others have learned from theirs.

• Your experience is a source of knowledge. The things you do every day give you a special kind of knowledge. This knowledge is not from a book; it comes from your practice. At Teach to Reach, we believe this practical knowledge is very powerful.
• You know your community best. Your knowledge comes from the real challenges you face and the solutions you find every day. This experience is a powerful teacher.
• Everyone is a teacher and a learner. In peer learning, you share your story and what you have learned from your work. You also listen to the stories of others and learn from them.
• We share real stories, not lectures. You will not sit and listen to a lecture. You will talk about real situations, what happened, and what you did. Others do the same. This is how we all learn what really works.
• It helps you grow. Sharing your story helps you to think more about your work. Listening to others gives you new ideas you can use to help your community.

The Teach to Reach story

Teach to Reach began in January 2021 with a large online event. 7,500 health workers came together to prepare for the challenge of giving the new COVID-19 vaccines.

During this event, something amazing happened. The health workers loved the chance to talk directly with each other in one-on-one networking meetings. They said that learning from their peers was the most powerful way to prepare for their work.

Because the community wanted to keep connecting, Teach to Reach became a regular event. At first, the main topic was immunization. But the health workers who joined shared stories about all the challenges they faced. They explained that a person’s health is not just about one disease.

As health workers shared their real-life experiences, the community grew in two important ways:
It grew from one event to an ongoing learning platform, network, and community.
It grew from a focus on immunization to include all parts of primary health care, such as malaria, neglected tropical diseases, and the effects of climate change on health.

Today, Teach to Reach is a place that breaks down the walls between different health topics, countries, and job roles. It is a community where we learn together how all parts of health are connected, guided by the real needs of the people we serve.