ABSTRACT
Community based health promotion in this chapter is taken to mean activities within
communities designed to promote health in a manner consistent with the principles espoused in the Ottawa Charter (WHO, 1986). Health promotion, according to the Ottawa Charter, is the process of ‘enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health’. Community-based health promotion aims to encourage empowerment amongst the community and, to this end, is based on a model of professional practice which stresses partnership rather than professional dominance. Community development is a key strategy. Its practice draws heavily on the work of Freire (1972) who advocated education for liberation which followed these stages:
• reflection on peoples’ lived reality; • analysis and collective identification of the root cause of that reality; • examination of their implication; • development of a plan of action to bring about change.
