Today is International #HumanRightsDay. At the Alliance for Healthier Communities, we want to celebrate some of the ways our members are standing up for human rights such as health care, access to public and social services, education, and community involvement.
A good example is that access to healthy food is a human right. Ontario’s community primary health care centres support food security through community gardening, cooking programs, soup kitchens, and partnerships with their local food banks.
Health care is also a human right, and one that our centres prioritize by providing primary health care to uninsured/underinsured people, and making it easier to access interprofessional care through initiatives like Team Care, oral health care, and harm reduction services. Alliance members also help dismantle barriers to these services by providing settlement support, help with taxes and social security applications, and free legal clinics.
Social Prescribing takes primary health care a step further by breaking down barriers to participation in community life by allowing providers to “prescribe” volunteer and other engagement opportunities. Your next Rx might be for dance lessons, fishing, knitting, or bingo!
We encourage you to explore these and other ways that Alliance member centres truly bring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to life for the people they serve, every day.