The 6 Focus Areas
During a Public Health Project, there are 6 key focus areas we will ask each team to focus on. These are derived as legitimate strategies to tackle NCD awareness from our partners.
The 6 Focus Areas on Your Project
- Advocacy Workshops
Each day, there will be a thematic focus and together with your team and youth group you shall support activities to promote learning, understanding and long-term action to promote awareness of and internalising of a healthy lifestyle.
2. Healthy Habits
The project aims to help promote healthy habits within the communities and support advice from our government partners, including distributing messages about nutrition, diet, smoking, drugs and NCD awareness. We work alongside Fiji’s National Wellness Centre and facilitate the Towards a Health Fiji Islands Initiative to link physical health benefits to mental health promotion by distributing government information.
3. Peer to Peer Support
You will assist in implementing strategies from Pacific charities, we create enabling spaces where young people feel able to talk about problems, open up and discuss their physical health without judgement. Encourage peer-to-peer discussions and empower youths to be role models and support each other and their younger siblings in facilitating conversations and spreading positive messages and awareness.
4. Care Strategies
Establish and demonstrate self-care and well-being activities within rural villages. This may include organising community walks, women’s aerobics, dance, music, art, drama, swimming, nature walks, hiking, family time, journal writing, blogs or community talks. These are activities that can be replicated and innovated by Fijian Youths.
5. Physical Activity
This aspect focuses particularly on encouraging a diverse range of engaging physical activity sessions. From sharing ideas for team sports and warm ups with Fijian youth groups, to introducing yoga and Zumba for community members to inspiring kids with fun sports and games. Physical activity being a major strategy in rural areas for the preventions of NCDs.
6. Leadership
Engage in team building and group challenges in areas of communication, decision making, self-leadership, time management, presentation skills, positive mindset and empathy which encompass effective leadership cross-culturally, advancing employability skills and boosting confidence.
The Healthy Islands Initiative
Non communicable diseases (NCDs) in Fiji is the number one killer. In order to address NCDs, the initiative focuses on young people to achieve prevention and protection. The seven action areas include financial, political, economical, physical, social, mental, and spiritual well-being.
In order for the programme to work, it must be hollistic. It looks at lifestyle and living conditions suimultaneously, rather than binarising physical, mental, social, economic, and spiritual factors. Addressing preventative factors aims to reduce dependency on medication. Sport and physical activity in rural communities is therefore a key strategy within the lifestyle space as a prevention measure for potential feature NCD cases and halting alarming statistics trends.
Hear Manasa Seniyasi, former Advisor for the Ministry of Health in Fiji and current trustee of the Think Pacific Foundation, talking about the origin of the Health Islands Initiative.