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Tarang Health Alliance, Fijeeha host workshop in Chandigarh, emphasize compulsory health education in Haryana schools
The workshop highlighted the opportunity for Haryana to pioneer solutions by implementing robust policy reforms, including mandatory health education for youth.
Tarang Health Alliance in partnership with Fijeeha hosted a media workshop in Chandigarh on November 12 to discuss the need for compulsory health education in schools in Haryana.
The workshop comes in the backdrop of deteriorating air quality in northern India that poses serious health risks to children.
The media workshop, led by Dr. Rahul Mehra, Founder and Executive Chairman of Tarang Health Alliance, highlighted the opportunity for Haryana to pioneer solutions by implementing robust policy reforms, including mandatory health education for youth.
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He said, “I strongly believe health education should be compulsory for children in their formative years, and towards this, we have begun an experiment, and the initial results are encouraging.”
Dr Mehra, a prominent global scientist and India’s National Representative for the UNESCO Chair in Global Health & Education, emphasized that children of Haryana deserve the same clean air as those in cities like Chicago, where AQI levels rarely exceed 50.
He added that preventive health education can play a vital role in countering long-term health impacts and empowering the next generation to make informed health choices.
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According to Dr Mehra, preventive health education teaches children to adopt healthy behaviors, aimed at reducing the societal burden of health issues before they arise.
Dr. Navneet Anand, Director of Fijeeha, a development-focused communication platform, said that Haryana’s success in sports demonstrates that with the right policies, children can excel, and it was time to extend this model to health education.
It may be mentioned here that Tarang Health Alliance has partnered with the Haryana government to launch a pilot program in 12 government schools, supplemented by efforts in 18 private schools in the NCR region, Chandigarh, and Jaipur.
Through this program, children learn critical health skills such as nutrition, hygiene, stress management, healthy relationships, and conflict resolution, as informed in a press release.
“Our pilot program has already shown promising results. Students are demonstrating a greater understanding of health topics and are making healthier choices. This shift reflects the power of a structured, curriculum-based approach to health education,” Dr Mehra said.
The consequences of a deteriorating air quality
Children’s lung capacity can be reduced by 20 percent when living in highly polluted environments, akin to the effects of long-term second-hand smoke exposure, according to UNICEF.
“Our goal is to reach a point where health education is not an option, but a core subject in schools," said Dr Mehra.
"We aim to have health education made compulsory for classes VI to VIII, and empowering children with knowledge now will benefit their health, and our society, for years to come,” Dr Mehra said.
