By: Faouziatou Sero
Lire cet article en français | Read this article in French
Biography
My name is Faouziatou Sero. I am a community health worker in Benin. I am Beninese, from the Borgou department, more precisely in the commune of Parakou. I live in the Albarika neighborhood where I am a community liaison in Cluster 16. I hold a professional degree in Germanic studies and have completed training in community health and palliative care. I undertook teaching internships in 2019 and 2021 before becoming a community health volunteer in 2022. Currently, I volunteer in palliative care.
In Benin, community health workers (CHWs) like me play a key role as intermediaries between health centers and households. There are 16,000 of us, deployed mainly in rural areas to bring healthcare closer to the population. Our work consists of awareness-raising activities, screening, malnutrition monitoring, vaccination, and management of diseases such as malaria. We are essential for promoting sexual health and vaccinations in our communities.
I want to share my experience supporting elderly members of my community and my work in community health. This story is important because it shows the impact of community health workers on the lives of the people we serve.
I wasn’t specifically trained to serve older members of my community. However, during my home visits in support of the seasonal malaria prevention campaign led by the National Malaria Control Program (PNLP), it was clear to me that the elderly in my community needed assistance. Some of these respected members of my community were disabled, others were alone and had no one to help them. After the campaign, I was nominated among the best community health workers in my commune and was chosen by a palliative care project as a volunteer to identify targets. This gave me the chance to enroll older adults in need in palliative care services.
At first, it was not easy for me. The typical household coverage for CHW in Benin is 150 to 200 households, but I have 350 to visit at least once a week, which is a heavy workload. Benin prioritizes several communicable and non-communicable diseases for integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR), such as polio, cholera, yellow fever, malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, diabetes, and mental health. Managing these diseases makes up the bulk of my work and requires significant reporting. Yet, I do my best to prioritize visits to the elderly because I love being with them.
Older adults receiving palliative care require frequent visits to check that they are taking their medication, ensure their nutrition and hygiene, and meet their daily living needs. My older clients are happy to see me, and some don’t want me to leave at the end of my visits, which motivates me to visit them at least once a week.
To address the needs of my elderly clients, I make home visits, monitor their health and wellbeing and help them with household chores. The palliative care project provides medication and food supplies. I take their temperature and check if they have taken their tablets. Each visit, I conduct a brief awareness session on nutrition and hygiene. I record any new complaints and make sure to assist with cooking and clearing before I leave. I am very happy with what I do, even though I often feel for my older clients when medication stocks run out quickly and they cannot afford more; in those cases, I bring “Zoro” muscle cream for massages.
My role as a CHW has allowed me to positively influence the lives of my elderly clients and this gives me pride. Over time, I have seen a significant improvement in their health, nutrition, and hygiene and I have learned that small gestures can make a big difference. This experience has encouraged me to continue the work and regular visits to my elderly clients have become a major focus of my day to day work. Knowing that my clients have woken up well is a beautiful gift that heaven offers me every day. This work as a CHW is more than a passion for me.
I want to inspire other CHWs to engage caring for elderly community members to improve the quality of life in our communities. I want policymakers and the community to know the importance of supporting the elderly in addition to continuing health activities to expand vaccination, screen for malnutrition, prevent and treat malaria, and improve community awareness on healthy living. Together, we can make a difference.
My hopes for the future are to further improve support for the elderly and community health overall. Every community health worker must commit to this work to make a difference in the lives of our seniors. I call for strengthening the role of CHWs to prioritize the care of the elderly, as they are the foundation of community wellbeing, in my opinion, and need our support.
Across the world, more people are living longer, and communities are finding new ways to support older adults in their daily lives. In many of these settings, Community Health Workers are playing a growing role, offering care, connection, and support where it is most needed. In recent years, we have also seen a growing body of research and publications highlighting the role of CHWs in supporting older adults, pointing to an area that is gaining attention but is still not widely understood across different contexts.
In response to this, CHW Central set out to explore this work more closely through our 2026 feature series on CHWs Supporting Older Adults, which will be published on our Features page and run through August. Through this series, we bring together perspectives from different parts of the world, sharing real experiences, insights, and lessons from both practice and research. We begin with this CHW Voice from Benin, a feature by Prof. Arkers Wong drawing from work in Hong Kong, China, and a recent news article from the United States. We invite you to explore these stories and follow along as more voices join the conversation.
