Wholistic Health and Self-empowerment in Latin America - a Christian Perspective
Wholistic health has been understood in many different ways, most of the time focused on different aspects of the individual with little attention to the sociopolitical and cultural factors. Individual health status and life styles are clearly determined by multiple factors and historical contexts in which individuals are immersed. This workshop looks at a 20-year case study in Latin America developing and refining a comprehensive approach which sees health as simultaneously a gift from God and a right/responsibility of each person and of society. Health is a journey manifested in a dynamic process of self-empowered families & communities gaining control over an integrated web of health determinants that enables them the construction meaningful and sustainable families and society. The workshop presents a ?10/40/60 comprehensive model? that allows communities organizations, churches and government to invest resources and energies on three type of efforts: ?Curative interventions?/?Preventive care?/?Building healthy environments, healthy behaviors & healthy policies?. Self-empowerment process in families & communities allows to gain control over their personal and social health determinants. The traditional goal of ?Health for All? needs a new approach of ?All for Health? in which the ?priesthood of the believers? can be embodied constructing healthy environments, healthy behaviors and healthy policies that allow nurturing and sustainable conditions for the coming generations.
