07 Health Promotion, HIV/Aids
What does health promotion mean?
Health Promotion is a process that aims at enabling people to make learned decisions in terms of their health. This process is a movement for more and better health; health promotion strengthens or creates conditions for people to take control over their health. Through improving conditions (work, environment and living conditions) as well as individual behaviour, people are enabled to stay healthy.
While health promotion aims at improving people's health, prevention aims at preventing diseases or detecting infection at an early stage.
The health promotion concept was developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1986 and summarised in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion.
What you need to look out for when developing health promotion projects
Make sure the methods applied in health promotion projects are useful, so that enable anyone who is involved can help shape the project.
- A participatory approach is crucial, since it is fundamental for a person's health to know that they can change their own life conditions.
- The second important method is empowerment. Empowerment recognises and promotes the capacity and maturity of a person. It aims at enabling people to discover or acquire own capacities. That is why empowerment and participation are important elements of health promotion.
HIV/Aids as the classic health issue
According to the latest report of the UN's Aids Organisation (UNAIDS), about 33 million people in the whole world are infected with HIV or suffer from Aids; the figures are rising. For many projects in the South it is very important to know more about HIV and Aids.
| HIV stands for "Human Immunodeficiency Virus". The HIV causes the disease. Anyone who is infected with HIV can pass the virus on to other people, even without having developed Aids. | AIDS stands for "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome". Aids can develop due to an infection with HIV. |
Find more information on HIV and Aids on
http://www.aids.ch/e/
Swiss platform on HIV/Aids and international cooperation
http://www.aidsfocus.ch/
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