Community-Based Animal Health Workers (CAHWs): Guardians for quality, localized animal health services in hard to reach livestock production systems.

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In remote areas underserved by public or private qualified veterinarians, VSF trains members of hard to reach and at-risk communities in good husbandry practices and basic animal health care. These trained CAHWs are able to perform a limited range of veterinary tasks and popularize husbandry methods in order to optimize animal production, which is particularly important as the crisis has significantly compromised crop production and vulnerable populations have been relying more than before on livestock. 

To reach a large number of conflict-affected people (internally displaced populations – IDPs –, host communities and returnees) and their livestock, VSF facilitates mass livestock vaccination and treatment campaigns using CAHWs teams that are equipped with basis service kits. Based on past experiences, these emergency veterinary interventions have focused on diseases with a quick impact on the reduction of livestock losses and thus food and nutrition security.