About Health Unlimited
When war or conflict grips a region the consequences can be far reaching. It is those caught in the cross-fire that suffer the most. The poor and vulnerable, particularly indigenous communities, often suffer exclusion and discrimination that impact on all parts of their lives, both during the conflict and its aftermath.
Health Unlimited provides practical training and support, teaching local health workers the skills they need to save lives. But more than this, they work in partnership with local people, building their capacity to manage community-based health services, helping to improve their access to state provision and promoting community action for better health. The charity encourages people at community level to identify what sort of health service they need and helps them develop the capacity to manage and deliver it.
For example in Cambodia, in the remote northern provinces of Rattanakiri and Preah Vihear, few people have access to proper health care and it will take years to rebuild the facilities and skills destroyed during Pol Pot's genocidal regime. By working with the government to improve rural services and with villages to promote community action, Health Unlimited is helping people take control over their own health.
Another example is its Well Women Media Project, where it is working with local audiences on interactive radio and television productions promoting positive attitudes to women's reproductive and sexual health. The programmes are broadcast by the BBC World Service and a variety of national radio stations. Programmes include soap operas and phone-in shows dealing with issues such as HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, the dangerous practice of female circumcision and birth spacing. The project has been launched in three regions - the Somali-speaking horn of Africa, the African great lakes region and Cambodia, reaching a total audience of 26 million people.
5 reasons to support Health Unlimited:
· We prioritise the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world – those neglected by governments and virtually everyone else. They might have been considered too hard to reach, or discriminated against for some other reason.
· We look at everything that impacts on health, not just the health service. This is to ensure an overall improvement in health, rather than allowing one cause of poor health to be replaced by another.
· 95% of our field staff are local people trained by Health Unlimited. We have pioneered a culturally sensitive approach that invests in the potential of local communities. Because of this our work makes a lasting difference.
· Our work is very cost-effective. Whenever possible we aim to eliminate health problems before they occur, through prevention, education and promoting healthy behaviour.
· For every pound you give, 91p is invested in supporting the people we serve.
Our history
Health Unlimited was founded in 1984 by a group of British Aid workers to meet the gap in provision of medical aid to people affected by prolonged and complex conflicts.
From these origins it pioneered a development approach to working in war-torn areas that invests in the potential of local people to take control of their own health. It is the only British charity that specialises in this kind of work and has demonstrated that even in emergency situations people can benefit from long-term initiatives.
Today, Health Unlimited's remit has expanded to include other deprived groups, in particular indigenous peoples, whose health and well-being are threatened by social exclusion, discrimination or persecution.