Marikina City
The city governments of Marikina and Parañaque bagged awards in the recently held fifth Global Conference of the Alliance for Healthy Cities (AFHC) in Brisbane, Australia.
The conference initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) gives honor to members of the AFHC that have improved the health and quality of living of people in their city.
Marikina Mayor Del De Guzman lauded the Nutrition Section of the City Health Office after winning the Best Proposal award entitled “Advocacy campaign to prevent onset of non-communicable diseases.”
The proposal, authored by Cecille Manga, aims to make workers and consumers aware on the importance of healthy-eating habits as well as to promote health awareness to the public through proper nutrition labeling on food products.
“The Nutrition Section of the City Health Office aims to provide healthy eating programs at the workplace involving canteens, food establishments, and street vendors,” Manga said in a statement.
Likewise, the proposal contains plans of agreement between food establishments and the city government, higher visibility campaign, multi-sectoral approach including strong collaboration with street vendors and owners of food establishments, and stronger-community-based education and awareness.
Parañaque City
Meanwhile, Parañaque City also won an award in the same conference with its entry project “Urban Heart.”
The “Urban Heart” project is an assessment and response mechanism that the city government uses as guide in the formulation of health policies and promote equal access to services, utilization of health facilities, and quality care for all.
“Urban Heart has been an invaluable tool in determining and doing away with the health service inequalities in the different communities in the city,” Parañaque Mayor Jun Bernabe said.
The said project, in combination with the CHO’s reproductive health and family planning services resulted to a significant impact in terms of reduction risks in pregnancy, home birthing, maternal mortality ratio and infant death rate, and increase in full immunization of children.
The Alliance for Healthy Cities is an international network aimed at protecting and enhancing the health of city dwellers. The Alliance is a group of cities and other organizations that try to achieve the goal through an approach called “Healthy Cities.”
In order to cope with the adverse effects of an urban environment over health, the WHO has been promoting the approach worldwide.
(Story courtesy of the Philippine News Agency’s Jimmyley I. Guzman)
