IIRR conducted The Training of Trainers on Primary Health Care, an eight-day training, that was requested by the GTZ-PAPSI (German Technical Cooperation – Poverty Alleviation Project Samar Island). It was designed to equip the participants with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to effectively train the Barangay Health Workers (BHWs), who were considered key partners in promoting Primary Health Care (PHC). The training was conducted for two batches (September 15-22, 2003 and October 6-13, 2003), with a total of forty–one participants (five males and thirty six females), who were health staff of selected municipal health offices of partner municipalities of PAPSI and provincial health office of Eastern Samar.

The TOT was a model in itself, demonstrating participatory and creative training methodologies. Each session included in-depth discussion through interactive lectures and exercises, followed with individual/small group workshops resulting to varied outputs like Training needs assessment reports, training designs and action plans.

The participants rated the training to be good to very good. They rated the attainment of the objectives generally successful to completely successful; content areas to be useful and relevant, and the facilitators to be effective. They appreciated very much the use of various methods during the training.