Strengthening Community Responses to Disease (SCR) Phase IIIName: Strengthening Community Responses to Disease (SCR) Pact-Myanmar's Strengthening Community Responses to Disease (SCR) project takes an innovative commitment-building approach that employs participatory learning and action to build sustained community responses to disease. A community health and development approach provides the cornerstone for our interventions. A three-day nonprescriptive workshop enables a community to explore the health situation in their village, analyze the nature of diseases they are burdened with, and develop action plans to address priority concerns. Plans can vary widely from describing steps that will result in improved latrine construction, to community-led HIV/AIDS education for self-identified vulnerable groups, and development of procedures to ensure that people on directly observed treatment short courses (DOTs) get their treatments. The second focal point of P PartnersUnocal Myanmar Offshore Limited
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act's approach involves the local design and management of a Village Health and Development Fund (VHDF). The VHDF is generated through a mix of household-level contributions with matching grants from Pact. Communities set their own priorities for how the fund is used, typically giving higher interest loans to the more well-off within the community, and using these proceeds to sustainably subsidize the health and development needs of the community's poorest. Successful community management of a fund is one of our strongest indicators of empowerment, not just for the benefits that the fund provides to its members, but for its role in binding groups in support of further reaching objectives.