About The Job

Apply by :

October 1, 2026

Know By

December 1, 2026

Depart On

June 7, 2026

Duration

2 years, plus 3 months training

ELIGIBILITY: Must be at least 18 years of age. Must be a U.S. citizen.

Project description

What words will describe your Peace Corps service as a Rural Community Health Promoter in Benin? Collaboration. Community Health. Learning. Growth. Adaptation. Leadership.

Imagine biking through your village to a meeting with a Community Health Worker, stopping often to greet your neighbors, colleagues, and friends in the local language. You and your Beninese colleagues set up a moringa sauce cooking demonstration for young women. You go to a friend’s house for lunch and take a turn at the big mortar and pestle to help pound the yams that you’ll eat with peanut sauce. In the afternoon you and your counterpart meet with your Amour & Vie youth peer health educator team so they can practice a training they are preparing about reproductive health. It is market day, and you stop on the way home for vegetables, negotiating in local language, before going to the tailor with some new tissu (local fabric) to order a new outfit for the upcoming local festival. At home, you sit under the mango tree holding your neighbor’s new baby. After dinner you sit out under the stars with the neighbor kids, talking about the upcoming festival, and exchanging messages with a friend back home.

This Is An Exciting Time To Work In Community Health In Benin. Benin’s Ministry Of Health Has Invited Peace Corps Volunteers To Collaborate With Community Health Workers To Promote Positive Outcomes In The Areas Of Maternal And Child Health, Malaria Prevention, And Youth Health And Well-being. The Government Uses a One Health Approach, Focusing On Households As The Main Actors For Good Health Within Communities. Benin Recently Launched Malaria Vaccinations For Children. You Will Have a Local Supervisor, And Your Daily Work Will Be Done In Collaboration With Community Health Workers Or Other Counterparts. You And Your Counterparts Will Focus On

• Maternal & Newborn Health: Exchanging best practices with women to contribute to a healthy pregnancy, safe delivery, good postpartum health, and a healthy newborn.
• Child Health: Building on the knowledge and skills of child caregivers to keep children under 5 healthy.
• Youth Health: Increasing the knowledge and skills of youth to improve their health and well-being through health and life skills education and access to youth-friendly services.
• Community Health Workers: Collaborating on skills for delivery of health education and behavior change messages.
  
  

You Will Use a Participatory Approach To Assess The Community’s Local Knowledge, Resources, And Needs, And To Identify Local Health Priorities. Together You Will

• Develop a parent care group and identify, train, and follow up with mother or father leaders who will expand health education outreach in their community
• The volunteer and counterpart will mentor the peer educator to address youth health issues in their community
  
  

You And Your Counterparts May Also

• Work with Community Health Workers to promote balanced nutrition among pregnant and breast-feeding mothers and children under five
• Co-facilitate youth health clubs
• Empower youth and influential community members to promote malaria prevention strategies
• Organize cooking demonstrations for women of reproductive age to promote infant nutrition and highlight the merits of a diversified diet
• Collaborating on skills for delivery of health education and behavior change messages.
• Plant gardens with women’s groups to provide increased sources of nutrition
  
  

In keeping with the government of Benin’s priorities, Peace Corps Benin promotes women and girls’ education and empowerment. In your primary and secondary projects, you will have the opportunity to implement girls’ empowerment related activities that are culturally appropriate, such as clubs, leadership programs, and sports teams. In addition, you will reinforce fathers’ and men’s family involvement by providing training on pregnancy and newborn care with them.

Required Skills

Qualified candidates will have an expressed interest in working in the health sector and one or more of the following criteria:

• Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science degree in any field
  
  

OR

• 5 years' professional work experience