New horizons for social development

Abstract

This commentary follows up on a field visit made by the authors to a community development programme in Cairo supported by a local non-governmental organization called New Horizon Association for Social Development (NHASD). The people who comprise NHASD are dedicated to improving the conditions and quality of life of the most marginalized and underdeveloped communities. The paper describes the overall approach that community members, social workers and leaders use to tackle the underlying causes of poverty and the skills, resources and services they build using a rights-based and participatory community development approach. It also addresses ideas for IUHPE concrete action, which came from discussions stimulated by the visit, to support such community initiatives out of isolation. It ranges from complimentary membership of the NHASD to the organization of a specific health promotion network of extremely socio-economically vulnerable communities in urban areas worldwide, connected to the IUHPE Group on Settings-based Health Promotion, as well as sessions at the forthcoming IUHPE 20th World Conference on Health Promotion on the theme “Health, Equity and Sustainable Development”. (Global Health Promotion, 2009; 16 (1): pp. 65—68)