PHM-SA Right to health training, Philipi.

Background

The training was organised as part of the Right to Health Campaign being led by the People’s Health Movement (PHM) in South Africa. The Campaign was launched in September 2007 and has three components – Capacity building, media and testimonies. The training is conceived as part of capacity building and raising awareness in communities about the right to health and what that entails. It complements the other components of the campaign, by, for example, empowering the participants to go out and train others, and allow community groups to participate in a process of gathering of stories related to the right to health.

The training held at Bonne Esperance was the first of the PHM’s workshops in the campaign so was a learning experience for all. In all, there were 22 participants from 4 organisations (Mamelani, Stukkende Plaas action group, Proudly Manenberg and Bonne Esperance), as well as 7 facilitators from PHM.

Programme

The programme ran from 9am to 3.30pm. Participants introduced themselves to the person sitting next to them, who then introduced themselves to the group, explaining who they were, where they came from and why they were there. An icebreaker involving calling on persons to stand or sit if they met a criterion was used to demonstrate the diversity of the group.

Content:

Content area	How covered	Materials
What is a human right? - can rights be taken away? - Can rights be limited? - Duty bearers, responsibilities - What does it mean to have a right?	Buzzgroups (turn to the person next to you and discuss what is a human right?) and discussion in plenary	Flipchart to write up people’s ideas Handout to summarise Pamphlets
Health as a right	Hand out vignettes / case studies; ask participants to discuss in groups; report back	Vignettes / case studies WHO booklet and Special Rapporteur booklet and PHM pamphlets on health as a right
South Africa’s Bill of Rights	Group exercise to identify & list health issues in the Constitution. Draw out geographical, issue specific and social challenges	Flipchart to write up people’s ideas. Handout to summarise? Bill of Rights handbook published by SAHRC
What is current health policy doing or not doing to realise health as a right.	introduction to health policy developments focussing on SHI and NHI	short presentation with input and discussion

What was gained…

“I feel empowered to know how important it is to be aware of my rights. Practicing it to myself will give a clear understanding so that I can share or implement the information to my clients. Sometimes my clients are not treated very well at the clinics and they didn't know which steps to follow to resolve their problems.”

“I learnt about how crucial it is to be aware of human rights and to be aware that having access to health is a human right”

”I now understand that to have a right is to be able to claim or demand this right to health”

“knowing your human rights and how to go about taking action when your rights are violated”

“I learnt about the violation of the rights at our clinics”

“I learnt new information about the constitution with regard to health as a right – everyone has this right and also the right to life and access to sufficient food and clean water.”

Way forward and recommendations…

“We work with communities whose rights are often violated, almost every day - I will add this information to our workshops because the people we are training don’t know about their right to health”

“We need to attend workshops like these more often so that we can learn more and be given answers to some of the questions we have.”

“I recommend that there is time given for follow up workshops because although it was very informative, there was not enough time to work out exactly how we can use this information in our organisation”