Tene Briut Organization for Health Care Promotion of the Israeli-Ethiopian Community

Tene Briut was established in 2006. we believe that every Israeli citizen has the right to proper health care and works nationally to promote the health of the Israeli -Ethiopian community. Today the Israeli - Ethiopian community numbers are estimated to be over 170,000 with new immigrants still continuing to arrive. Among the major challenges Ethiopian immigrants face in Israel is an adjustment problem to a different type of social and physical environment of which the major one is the adaptation problem to the new Israeli healthcare system and the management of Western chronic diseases that were literally unknown to them while in Ethiopia. Typically, immigrant ethnic population groups in the process of acculturation to a Western lifestyle tend to exhibit a relatively high prevalence of chronic illnesses. In Israel, the Ethiopian immigrant community has an estimated prevalence of diabetes of 17% within 7-10 years of immigration- nearly triple the frequency in the general population. In the same way, the mental health problem is also on rise partly due to faulty diagnosis and management because of luck of active communication and proper understanding of the cultural contents of the community that unfortunately ended up in considerably high rates of suicide in the past years. The radical changes in diet and lifestyle that accompanied the process of immigration from Ethiopia to Israel, causing a system overload of refined sugars and saturated fats among a population that was traditionally relied upon whole grains, minimized meat and dairy products, low sugar sweetened food consumption and vegetables; and the transition from a physically active to a relatively sedentary lifestyle, played a greater negative role to their health condition today. The combination of these factors has triggered the onset of chronic diseases especially diabetes and its complications to an epidemic proportion among the Israeli-Ethiopian population. This is without a complete mentioning of a lot of other health conditions such as traumatic mental health problems. Tene Briut Health Organization and its Mission Tene Briut , established 12 years ago (Tene - meaning “health” in both Amharic and Hebrew) believes that every Israeli citizen has the right to proper health care and works nationally to promote the health of the Israeli -Ethiopian community. Tene Briut has developed a competent community outreach activities with emphasis on education for prevention, detection and treatment of western life-style related chronic diseases. Through our team of specially trained ( Tene Briut's approach and its specific projects ) Ethiopian health professionals and lay health leaders, we aim to improve health outcomes for the community and ensure equal access and optimal utilization capacity of Israel's health care services through innovative programming to both the community as well as the primary level health care staff ( acquaintance to the traditional community language and cultural gaps ) and for the donating and other supporting sources including translation services and strengthened health advocacy. The innovative programming includes: developing explanatory materials in Amharic language written in power points and fliers, identifying and reducing the hindering factors, organizing and activating lecture and workshop groups for subject specific explanation including unbalanced chronic diabetic patients' self empowering groups, for nutrition explanation and healthy cooking practices , health fare or happening days and other health activities in order to reduce the gaps created.