HPB Voices Reloaded
July - August 2007
The 19th IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education - Health Promotion Comes of Age: Research, Policy & Practice for the 21st Century
The trip to Vancouver…
We were welcomed with rain and cold winds. Temperature read 9 degree celsius. Isn’t it supposed to be summer? Where is the sun? According to the locals it was an unusually cold summer but I welcomed the cool weather.
IUHPE, International Union of Health Promotion Education is a gathering of health promoters, researchers, and educators to share and learn from one other to improve health of everyone. People of different races, different languages and religions came from almost every corner of the earth to this gathering that happens once in every 3 years. This year’s gathering also happened to mark the 21st anniversary of the Ottawa Charter. “The overall mission of the conference is to review and critically reassesses health promotion’s progress since Ottawa Charter and to help set the course for navigating through new challenges facing health promotion in an increasingly globalised world.”
HPB sent a contingent of 13 health promoters each either “armed” with a poster or a thumb drive to do an oral presentation of their respective programmes.
Ladies hard at work
The plenary sessions were insightful as the experts were invited to share their experiences. The numerous concurrent sessions were indeed enlightening as we listen to other delegates share their research work and/or health promotion programmes. One of the concurrent sessions that made me stood up was on social marketing. Health Canada advocates it strongly, investing millions of dollars on the media as a platform to create health awareness. What struck me at this conference was that youth health issues pervasive in Singapore are not unique to us. Countries like United States and Middle East face the same pertinent youth health issues like smoking, sexual health and mental health. Flavoured tobacco and Shisha is a trend almost everywhere even in China!
It was not all work and no play for us. Vancouver has a good blend of nature and city life. There’s an easy access to shopping malls and within half an hour you can be transported to nature. Some of us took the day tour to Vancouver Island, which was breath taking.
Half of the contingent brave the cold wind to pose on the ship which took us to Vanc Island
Kelly and I took a bold step to walk on the Capilano Suspension Bridge, which is the longest in the world. The scenery in Vancouver was simply awesome.
We will miss the fresh air, breathtaking scenery, warm smiles and donuts in Vancouver.
North Vancouver