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Health Messengers Association
Organisation: Health Messengers Association
Address: PO Box 38, BO49, Str. Dr Marcovici 5-7 AP39 Sect 1, Bucuresti 70716
Tel: +40 1 688 5233/313 1551
Fax: +40 1 313 1551
E-mail: fori@fx.ro
Contacts: Eugenia Grosu Popescu, President; Ioana Toma, Managing Director
Organisation
The Health Messengers Association began their Child-to-Child activities in April 1992 and are a local voluntary organisation largely funding our own activities though they do solicit and receive small outside grants, e.g. from USAID in 2004. Most projects take place in urban areas. Every year, about 150 children are involved in Child-to-Child activities. The children are aged between 8 and 16 years. In some projects, street children, children in orphanages and children who have been left in hospital are specific target groups. Adult workers are teachers, doctors and nurses, social workers and, after they have reached 16 years of age, Health Messengers.
Child-to-Child Activities
The programme reported in 2000:
“Our main aims are:
1. To promote a healthy lifestyle amongst children (especially prevention of drug use/addiction);
2. To encourage children to protect their environment;
3. To provide opportunities for children to improve the effectiveness of their communication.
One of our projects, 'Happy Hippo Show', a medicine interactive show, is designed to promote positive thinking and children's rights. Another, a project which began in 2001, is called the Danube Children Parliament, and also focuses on the promotion of children's rights.
Child-to-Child activities are introduced through Health Messenger Association clubs, as well as through radio and television. Children are encouraged to develop their thinking skills through a variety of activities. These include:
1. Role plays;
2. 'The Cigarette Trial' (the court is composed of Health Messenger children, and the witnesses are adults, primarily representatives of the tobacco industry, government, and the Ministry of Health, etc.);
3. Medicine shows (interactive);
4. Monitoring certain areas or streets in order to clean up the environment.
We use the Child-to-Child six-step approach in almost all Health Messenger Association projects. We aim to develop practical, thinking and communication skills in children. We want to enable them to plan their own lives, to develop their own thinking, to be able to deal with conflict, to develop good understanding, and to develop skills in the area of journalism, through their work with radio and television.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Child-to-Child Activities
We use methods such as interviews (tutorials), tests, seminars, annual reports and meetings (children, parents, experts) in order to monitor and evaluate their programmes.
Training:
We provide training for children, teachers and parents. HMA experts are the trainers. The content of the training focuses on participatory and other methods, as well as on project generation.
Materials
We use many current Child-to-Child materials as resources. Additionally, we intend to adapt the Child-to-Child/International Catholic Child Bureau publication, Listening for Health. We also intend to produce our own materials in the future.
Date: 2000. Updated information awaited.
Source: Child-to-Child Website Directory 2000
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