Spotlight on project – CHE in Uganda

Community Health Empowerment (CHE) is a widely practiced model for Christian community development. Around the world, it is more commonly known as Community Health Evangelism. However, in Uganda, churches thought that they were being viewed as less advanced in their faith by requiring this evangelism training. So, EIUG decided to change the name to avoid this unintended offence.


The Community Health Empowerment project is carried out by Emmanuel International Uganda (EIUG) through the Church of Uganda in the Diocese of Kitgum. The idea behind the method is to train individuals who then go out and train others, therefore creating a ripple effect. Individuals from the community are brought to a location and participate in a 3-week training program. These trainers form a committee and together they assess the needs of their community. They then address these needs by using the CHE network of 4,000-5,000 lessons in areas such as health, agriculture, business, spiritual lessons, and more. The trainers will go to each home in their area and teach the family both a practical and spiritual lesson.

This is a Christian community development technique to help people assess their own needs and challenges and provide them with information on how they can address them themselves, therefore creating sustainable change.

Fun Facts:

• Did you know that the CHE method was started by a man in Uganda in the 1980’s? It is now used all over the world in almost 90 countries.
• Many of the lessons are on preventative health practices which is why it is called Community Health Empowerment.