Healthlink Worldwide Health and Disability Community Communication

Author: Disability Community
Published: 2009/02/24 - Updated: 2010/07/11
Category Topic: Disability Communities - Academic Publications

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main

Synopsis: Healthlink Worldwide is the specialist health and development agency that empowers through communication.

Introduction

Main Content

Healthlink Worldwide works to improve the health and well being of disadvantaged communities in developing countries and provides expertise in communication, knowledge management and learning. We work with organizations and institutions at all levels, from local and national NGOs to national and international decision making bodies.

In 1977, Healthlink Worldwide, then called Appropriate Health Resources Technologies Action Group (AHRTAG), was founded by Dr Katherine Elliott and other members of the Intermediate Technology Development Group Health Panel.

The most successful responses to health challenges build on local knowledge and commitment. That's why Healthlink Worldwide works in partnership with organizations in developing countries that can engage with local communities.

Today Healthlink Worldwide works in partnership; with over 50 partners in more than 30 countries improving the health of people living with HIV and AIDS, disabled people, children and young people and vulnerable women. Partnership means real connection between people over time. That's why they work with sustained commitment from community to national and international levels, with academic and government institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGO).

The organization was founded to help health workers get access to information. Too often doctors and nurses in developing countries were working in hospitals and clinics with no access to libraries. Where information was written it was not always in the right language or relevant to the circumstances people were working in. It was AHRTAG's intention to bridge the gap between what information was available and what was needed.

Healthlink networks bring together communities, organizations and decision makers. Healthlink listens to what their partners need and act to support them whether that's by creating resources, supporting resource centers, helping organizations to evaluate what they have learned, communication training, providing access to information or promoting advocacy activities. Healthlink formed 30 years ago to bridge the gap between information needs and information availability. Thirty years on Healthlink are still finding innovative ways of working to help partners communicate and provide information where it is needed the most.

Healthlink's latest projects include the experiential Seeing in the Dark exhibition, part of the Communicating for Advocacy program, and the International Memory Project is underway working with our partner NACWOLA, Uganda with funding from Comic Relief - www.healthlink.org.uk