Project Overview
Health education is an integral part of social development, and it to be successful, it has to have full co-operation and involvement of the community.

From experience, IR has found that health education messages, especially in Muslim countries, are ignored by the general public and are not taken seriously unless supported by references to the Islamic tradition.

This project aims to provide religious leaders who are largely influential within the communities with the necessary skills and knowledge to impart basic Facts For Life (FFL) to these communities. The project is supported by UNICEF.

Project Background
In 1985 UNICEF office in Cairo with the help of Al Azhar Islamic University and the Islamic University of Al Imam Ibn So’ud published a book called “Child Care in Islam”.

The book contained many health messages largely referenced ti the Islamic tradition so as to allow Muslims leaders to convey these messages to predominantly Muslim audiences.

The book was highly praised and accepted by religious leaders not only in Egypt but also in other Muslims’ countries.

A new book 'Facts For Life for Religious Leaders' was published in the Philippines, again through the support of UNICEF and was considered an innovative idea for disseminating facts for life messages in many Muslim countries including Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh there are 250,000 mosques and every Friday people go to the nearest mosque to attend Friday prayer. Half an hour prior to the beginning of the prayer they sit and listen to the Imam’s speech.

As the majority in Bangladesh are Muslims, one can expect that at least 25 million people attend Friday prayers.

Therefore, with minimal training, Imams can spread health messages to millions of people in a very cost-effective manner.

In the rural villages of Bangladesh Imams are highly respected. In many cases people seek health and social advice from the Imam.

IR’s past experience has shown many cases where people have sought advice and have asked their religious leaders about child immunization, TT vaccination, types of food for children or the pregnant mothers, etc.

Project Objectives
This training is intended to build the capacity of religious leaders in giving advice so that they are able and capable of giving the correct advice to communities in a way which would otherwise be difficult and considered too sensitive for Muslim communities.

Although the Imams receive some training on various topics organised by Islamic Foundation (a government agency) the health messages that are disseminated are generalised and are not specifically targeted at the community’s problems.

Therefore, the aim is that the Imam will develop an awareness of the communication process, becoming able through the training to target messages appropriately and to use Facts For Life as a resource to support the knowledge they already have.

The messages are aimed largely at the men in the community who are encouraged to discuss the matters with their wives and use the Islamic code of living to support the health messages.

Project Activities
Religious leaders imparted with Facts for Life allowing them to identify community health problems.

Build capacity of Imams to impart and communicate health message through their Khutba (Sermon) in simple, easy to understand language, using examples that community can relate to.

Support the Facts for Life objectives with references to the Islamic tradition, making the messages more convenient for the Imams and more acceptable to the communities.

Beneficiaries
There are about 832 mosques in 17 union of Mithapukur thana and 876 Imams attached to those mosques. Among the mosques, 753 are Jam'i mosques and 79 are general mosque. As a total, 42 Imams have received training from Islamic Foundation on different issues like Imam training, socio-economic development, livestock etc.

As part of a pilot scheme in early 1999 these were selected for this project. Their activities were monitored and evaluated and on the basis of this the project has been expanded to target more Imams.