A culturally specific educational program to reduce the risk of HIV and HBV transmission among Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. II: Evaluating the effect of the training program on veteran immigrant trainees

We describe the evaluation of a program for training veteran Ethiopian immigrants to be health educators/cultural mediators. This educational intervention project was designed to lower the risk of transmission of HIV and HBV among the immigrants who arrived in Israel in 'Operation Solomon', May 1991. The training program was designed to teach the biomedical model of HIV transmission and its prevention, and to allow the trainees to explore their feelings about people with HIV/AIDS in order to enable them to teach these issues appropriately to the general community of immigrants from Ethiopia, and to work with individuals with HIV among them. It also trained them in teaching skills and in imparting the knowledge in a culturally appropriate manner. The evaluation of changes in knowledge was done at three time points: at the beginning of a 3-day training seminar (A), its end (B) and after 7 half-day training sessions comprising the whole training program 4 months later (C). We also evaluated the changes in their attitudes and feelings about teaching these subjects and their estimate of their teaching skills at two time points (B and C). The data were collected from a written questionnaire. We also monitored their teaching through direct observation by people who spoke Amharic, and through the trainees completing a self-monitoring form. The monitoring and evaluation efforts were built into the structure of the program (including the interventions themselves). They include several complementary, approaches: qualitative and quantitative, structured and semi-structured, reported and observed.