EENET asia Newsletters : inaugural issue JUNE 2005 Contents

The Economy and Development of a Country Depends on Good Health: Interview with Professor Anita Ghulam Ali, Managing Director, Sindh Education Foundation, Pakistan

Parvez Ahmed Pirzado

School Health Education and Promotion plays an important role in disseminating health awareness in the communities. This has been affirmed by an action research project entitled ‘Health Action Schools (HAS) Project’ by The Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED). The HAS project began as an initial three year (1998-2001) action research project using child-to-child approach in partnership with Save the Children, UK. On the basis of successful results of the pilot project, an expansion phase was started to influence other organizations and schools to initiate the school health education and promotion program. In 2001, Professor Anita Ghulam Ali, an eminent educationist and the Managing Director of Sindh Education Foundation (SEF), an autonomous organization, showed her interest to initiate the health education and promotion program in 100 Community Supported Schools (CSS) for girls in rural areas of Sindh province, Pakistan. It’s almost four years now that the health education and promotion program is running successfully in CSS.

Recently the Health Education and Promotion team conducted an interview with Prof. Anita Ghulam Ali to discuss the successes and challenges of health education and promotion in CSS. During the interview Professor Ghulam Ali described the importance of health education as; “I believe that health and education should go together. Because the more you go to the grassroots level the more you find that a lot of issues are related to health. Physical problems are more visible, but there are some other issues also. For example if a child is not well, especially if he or she has got some impairment, like deafness or dyslexia, and you can’t see these things, then that child is disadvantaged, you don’t judge him or her fairly. We feel that teachers should be able to identify any kind of impairment or weakness, in the sense of hearing, seeing, comprehension, etc. So that we don’t need children to be taken out of school and put into hospital or taught separately, but that the teachers are able to know that child has an impairment and a little more attention will have to be given or the child may have to be treated a little differently, because I can’t think of any other relationship closer than that of a teacher, where you have an opportunity to know so much about a child”.

Professor Anita Ghulam Ali further explained; “Health education doesn’t mean just physical health, it is linked with mental health, change in attitudes, change in habits and change in perceptions. Awareness and prevention should be the first priority, we should tell children how to prevent and protect themselves from getting ill. It’s very important that we prepare them to get vaccinations and learn small and simple things in which they can address issues at their own level first, because healthy children will make better students”.

On talking about impacts of health education in CSS, Professor Ghulam Ali shared; “There were many positive changes. Especially the attitude of the community towards our team has changed because they thought we cared for them. There was definitely a change in practices also, especially in children. They were very proud and tell stories that someone has diarrhea and how they made ORS and gave it to them and they became well. In this way the younger generations inspired the other community members and were able to do healthy things for them.”

She believes that school should have separate time slots for health. She added, “I think teachers have more freedom than anyone else. What stops them from taking initiatives? There are many ways to integrate and introduce new things. The important thing is that first you must have commitment to get some knowledge and then be able to share it with someone else.”

About the challenges they faced, she told that, “There were challenges also; basically those challenges were due to the deprivation of the community. If we ask them to drink boiled water, first there is lack of water and if the water is available, then they haven’t the firewood for boiling. Another challenge was that our team is young and senior community people think why should they change their habits, they are doing these things since years and it’s difficult to change them. I ask my team that they need to show a lot of patience and tolerance. You need to understand the community and it depends on the way you communicate with them. We should not expect miracles and don’t expect results to come immediately.

Finally Professor Anita Ghulam Ali stressed that schools can play an important role in promoting health, because children generate ideas and their attitude and awareness are developed from schools. She believes that health education should be a part of policy. She concluded, “We need to convince the government to focus more on health education programs, because it is worthwhile and it should be given the priority. In my perception the economy and development of a country depends on good health. You should provide an enabling environment to children; ultimately it contributes to development and economy.

Professor Anita Ghulam Ali is an eminent educationist and Managing Director of Sindh Education Foundation (SEF), an autonomous organization.

Interview by: Parvez Pirzado and Zohra Nisar
Compiled by: Parvez Ahmed Pirzado

Parvez Ahmed Pirzado works for the Health Education and Promotion section at Aga Khan University–Institute for Educational Development Karachi, Pakistan.
He can be contacted at
Ph: 92-21-6347611-4
Email: parvez.pirzado@aku.edu or parvezpirzado@yahoo.com.au

EENET asia Newsletters : inaugural issue JUNE 2005 Contents