Page 58 - SAMRC Annual Report 2023-24

Work assessing excess mortality consequent on Capacity building of community health workers
COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, has through VAPAR (Verbal Autopsy with Participatory
a special issue due out in 2024. Action Research) focused on building CHW skills in
community mobilisation through training in rapid
Equitable capacity development Participatory Action Research (PAR), convening
for empowering communities community groups, responding to local health
concerns, and facilitating action in communities.
Recognising the high unemployment of local youth,
Agincourt runs a successful data intern programme, Following district request, in 2023 the project was
recruiting young graduates from the local area and disseminated across all 3 districts in Mpumalanga.
providing them with practical experience and skills in Traditional healer training in HIV counselling and
development of data pipelines, data management, testing was conducted as part of the Ntirhisano
curation and storage, and data communications. study that aims to establish a model for traditional
healer integration into the primary healthcare
Most progress to positions within the unit after the system. 15 traditional healers were formally trained
6-month internship.
in HIV counselling and testing as part of a successful
Digital skills training for local youth involved a 6 month pilot trial following which a full RCT has now been
'Artificial Intelligence Machine learning' course for funded through the NIH with further training of a
15 unemployed youth from the Agincourt area run larger group of traditional healers anticipated.
by CXI-Africa (Centre for Digital Transformation and In December 2023, Agincourt with the NGO
Innovation Africa) in collaboration with SAMRC/ goGoGogo, ran a workshop for grandparents in
Wits-Agincourt and SANParks, funded by the Media, the study villages that taught digital skills on tablets
Information and Communication Technologies donated by the SAMRC/Wits-Agincourt Unit. This
Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT aimed to provide skills for grandparents caring
SETA). Agincourt now has an MOU with MICT SETA for children, to help them navigate the internet
for future training programmes. including access to educational platforms.

Field workers meeting outside Agincourt lab.

Data Sciences and Innovation Hub at the SAMRC/ Collecting biomatric data in a household
Wits-Agincourt Research Centre, Bushbuckridge. in the Agincourt study area.

56 SAMRC ANNUAL REPOR T 2023-24