Month: February 2023

The third edition of the Global Community Health Annual Workshop will take place on 13, 14 and 15 June 2023 as an online event. The main theme of this year’s workshop is ‘Sustainable community health: practice-based solutions for today’s challenges’. The theme will be explored through different sub-themes, including food security, mental health and environmental health. The practice-based solution to be featured this year will be stakeholder engagement and mobilisation. Examples of this will relate to the sub-theme each day. Stakeholders include families, professionals, commercial interests and policymakers as relevant to each health topic. The workshop provides a space where community health and health promotion practitioners and policy makers can improve their skills and where researchers can gain in capacities to conduct community-based participatory research.

Format of the workshop

The global workshop will run during 3 consecutive days. To accommodate participants from all different time zones around the world, the workshop will be offered twice a day.

It uses an interactive format ensuring active participation through a series of online lectures, combined with community heath hubs.

These community health hubs (smaller working groups) acknowledge our diversity and cultural dimensions and are offered in different languages including Arabic, English, French, Spanish and other languages depending on the availability of facilitators. During the community health hubs participants have the opportunity to share experiences, build their regional and global networks and work with other group members on their assignment.

The online lectures are held in the English language. We do not want language to be a barrier for participation. Therefore we are trying to organise simultaneous translation.

Registration

This year’s workshop is free of charge. Professionals, policy makers, researchers and students from different backgrounds from all over the world are welcome to join. You can register by completing the online registration form.

Participants who attended all lectures and submitted their assignment on a community health topic after the workshop will have their efforts rewarded by a certificate of attendance delivered by the UNESCO Chair. They can also request a certificate from IUHPE to accumulate credits toward registration/re-registration as a health promotion practitioner under the IUHPE Accreditation System.

The third edition of the Global Community health Annual Workshop is organised by the UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education, University of Clermont Auvergne, University of Huddersfield, International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and EHESP School of Public Health.

More information see the dedicated webpage.

Editors: Monica Carlsson, Irene Torres & Martin Mickelsson.

The deadline for submissions is 21. November 2023.

The aim of the special issue is to highlight how social justice and equity perspectives can qualify and deepen our understanding of how health, wellbeing and sustainability challenges are addressed in education in different cultural contexts in a way that supports the agency of children and youth. Furthermore, the aim is to create greater awareness of the potential in linking health, wellbeing and sustainability in educational research and practice.

Against this background, we welcome contributions of current research on conceptualizations of health, wellbeing and sustainability education from a social justice and equity perspective. Contributions are also welcome focusing on analytical problematisations of traditional health, wellbeing and sustainability education policies and interventions in schools and the way these efforts position those most marginalised in society.

More information

Insufficient and unequal investment

The investments made by countries around the world in school health and nutrition programmes, are unequal from one region to another and often insufficient compared to the needs. Stronger commitment from national governments and support from the international community are essential.

Currently, almost 1 in 3 schools (31%) do not have safe drinking water and basic sanitation facilities. This means that an estimated 584 million children have limited or no access to basic drinking water services at school; 2 in 5 of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa. And while almost all countries in the world provide school meals, an estimated 73 million of the most vulnerable children still do not benefit from these school feeding programs on the ground.

Affordable concrete solutions to meet local needs

UNESCO, UNICEF and WFP appeal to international community, countries and partners to step up actions to protect and promote the physical and mental health, nutrition, well-being and development of all learners. All stakeholders are urged to focus on key interventions appropriate to local contexts and needs, including: the provision of school meals; vaccinations; de-worming; psychosocial support; skill-based health education that enables learners to lead healthy lives; and safe and inclusive learning environments that promote health and well-being.

More about the authors

The report is launched by three publishing partners UNESCO, UNICEF and WFP, in collaboration with the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and World Health Organization (WHO), and with support from the Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, the World Bank and the UN-Nutrition Secretariat.

Link to the report

On 15 February the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, the UNESCO Section of Health and Education and the Government of Sweden are co-hosting a webinar to launch the latest peer learning tool on countries’ approaches to comprehensive sexuality education. 

The aim of the event is to explore the new country profiles to better understand the status of sexuality education around the world. Discussions will extract lessons from countries whose promising practices are empowering young people to make informed decisions about their futures.

Hear ministers of education, donors, youth advocates and teachers share their reflections on this new exciting online tool which maps laws and policies in each country to raise awareness of what works and guide implementation.

Register to join this webinar, in English or Spanish, on Wednesday 15 February from 2:00 to 3:15 pm CET.

A one-day hybrid seminar for all school health stakeholders in the Pacific!

21 February 2023 from 9.30am to 3.30pm AEDT

Please join us as we consider the future of school health promotion in the Pacific region. This seminar is the first in a series of dialogues that aim to bring together key stakeholders from across the region and provide a platform for discussion and innovation in school health promotion. The major aim of this first seminar is for us to consider how schools can best contribute to the health and wellbeing of students, teachers, and the broader school community moving forward. The seminar will adopt a futures based approach to consider what school health promotion might look like in 2050.

The seminar’s objectives are to:

1. Share current approaches to school health promotion across the Pacific region;
2. Discuss what we want school health promotion to look, and feel, like in 2050;
3. Identify current key enablers and barriers to school health promotion within our local and regional contexts;
4. Identify key priorities and actions for strengthening school health promotion in the short and medium term; and
5. Network among key stakeholders involved in school health promotion.

This seminar will be of interest to teachers, teacher educators, health promotion professionals, school nurses and other school health workers, health organisations, policy and curriculum workers, professional associations and academics.

The seminar is organised as a hybrid event online on Zoom and face to face at Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Australia. It will be held in English and French with online simultaneous translation.

You can register by completing this form. Registration is open until Wednesday 15 February 2023. Participating in the workshop is free of charge.

The seminar is co-organised by Monash University and University of Clermont Auvergne, the UNESCO chair and WHO Collaborating Centre Global Health & Education, the Pacific Community and supported by the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE), Réseau francophone international pour la promotion de la santé (REFIPS), VicHealth, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the University of Auckland. Under the auspices of WHO Western Pacific (tbc) and UNESCO Office for the Pacific States.

More information

Register here

More information and detailed programme