The theme for the 2022-23 Your World video competition is Good Health and Well-being linking directly to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 3.
As the world recovers from a global pandemic, the lasting effect it has had on health and wellbeing is still being felt. This year's theme is a chance to reflect and address how our communities can tackle this. There is a shortage of health workers in many regions and health workers have been stretched to their limits by the pandemic. It is estimated that per 10,000 people in Northern America there are 150 nurses and midwives. For the same number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa it is estimated there are only 10 nurses and midwives.
If current trends continue, only 39 per cent to 63 per cent of the global population will be covered by essential health services by 2030. Illness and death from communicable diseases is therefore expected to spike. In addition to this there has been a surge in mental health issues around the world.
To overcome these challenges, we need to first promote and protect our own health, raise awareness in our community about the importance of good health, healthy lifestyles and then find solutions to pressing health concerns described above. To do this we need to innovate through ideas that will help us address these. The Your World Video Competition is the perfect place to start.
By choosing to ensure healthy lives and promoting well-being we will build prosperous societies. For instance, by solving the shortage of medical staff, whether through recruitment, training, retention or other strategies, there will be greater access to healthcare for populations, leading to improved health throughout the community. Another example may be that by establishing ways to promote mental wellbeing with the community through a structured plan, the burden on the health sector could be reduced and experts could be developed within the field.
Therefore, we need to creatively rethink our view of health and well-being. Your social action project should aim to improve health and well-being, through actions that deal with an issue for a community of your choice, highlighting an issue and its impacts on an identified community. Your identified community could be the local community or even your school community.
Your social action project could explore one of the following ideas:
- Raising awareness in your community about the importance of good health and healthy lifestyles.
- Improving mental health through creating support groups.
- Lowering the transmission rates of diseases.
- Ensuring communities recover from healthcare disruptions from Covid-19, including recruitment, development, training, and retention of the health workforce.
Or any other idea that looks at improving health and well-being of a community, big or small including your school over the long term.
In completing the project, you might want to speak to experts or ministers in the fields your project is exploring. Experts might also be persuaded to look at ideas in more depth.
