26th September, 2017 A World Health Organization (WHO) Liaison to Tonga, Dr. Yutaro Setoya opened a Health Promoting Churches Partnership Training at Tungi Colonnade Conference Room this morning.
Hosted by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with various churches in Tonga, the three-day training aimed to support people towards healthy lifestyle.
Speaking to more than 20 participants, Dr. Setoya said “This initiative was launched 8 years ago in 28 July, 2009, by the Ministry of Health (MOH), national forum of church leaders, and WHO, among others. The WHO CLO of that time, Dr. Pratap Jay, has recently visited Tonga and reviewed the activities”.
“Dr. Pratap Jay found out that many of the churches are doing excellent activities, such as vegetable gardens, awareness raising, and NCD screening. He was happy about the evolvement of the project and made some recommendations, such as to appoint health coordinator for each church, make activity plans for each church and to report and monitor the activities”, he added.
Dr. Setoya told the gathering that he believes in the importance of the church, as a way to support the behavior change of Tongans towards healthy lifestyle.
He said that the cause of death of people in the Pacific were due to non-communicable diseases such as stroke, heart attack and cancer and many people also suffer from diabetes and renal failure.
Dr Yutaro Setoya stated that the main NCDs key risk factors are related to alcohol, tobacco and unhealthy diet and the lack of physical activity.
Chairperson of the Churches Promoting Health Partnership (CPHP) Rev. Fili Lilo expressed his sincere gratitude to the WHO for their financial assistance for the CPHP. He stated that they are looking forward for more collaboration especially on funding of the findings from Raising of CPHP and NCDs Crisis.
The workshop is funded by the World Health Organization (WHO).
ENDS
Issued by the: Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change & Communications.