scholarly journals Improving Health Consciousness and Life Skills in Young People Through Peer-Leadership in Thailand

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Teerachote ◽  
P Kessomboom ◽  
A Rattanasiri ◽  
R Koju

Background Peer leadership is widely recognized as an effective approach to health promotion and empowerment among people of similar ages, especially the youth. Such programs build peer leaders who in turn help empower the youths in their groups to improve their health and life skills related to health. Most previous studies have focused on the effectiveness of such activities in target groups but have neglected to effectively address and explore the transformations in peer leaders themselves. Objectives This descriptive study aimed to investigate the level of social change and health consciousness among student peer leaders in three Youth health promotion programs in Thailand: Friend’s Corner, Smart Consumer and Volunteer Minded Young Dentists, and to compare them with the general students. Methods The study was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire, which was developed based on Tyree’s Social Change Model of leadership, Gould’s concept and Dutta-Bergman’s concept. The study population comprised of 11th grade students (N=660) from Kalasin Province in Thailand, 320 of whom were peer leaders. Results The findings revealed that the peer leaders scored higher than non peer leaders in all domains. Among the peer leaders, it was found that Volunteer Minded Young Dentists group had the highest scores in “controversy with civility”, “social change agent” characteristics, “holistic health perceptions” and “responsibility for one’s own health” regarding health consciousness. Conclusion The results of this study confirmed that the peer leadership approach can help young people to develop life skills through social transformation and increase health consciousness for better status of health in the community. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/kumj.v11i1.11025 Kathmandu University Medical Journal Vol.11(1) 2013: 41-44

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (10-11) ◽  
pp. 1410-1424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Estefanía Ruiz-Palomino ◽  
Cristina Giménez-García ◽  
Rafael Ballester-Arnal ◽  
María Dolores Gil-Llario

Unhealthy behaviors are strongly associated with chronic diseases, disabilities, or mortality. Identifying the predisposing factors that influence on self-care healthy habits will improve an early detection of high-risk groups. Four hundred and sixty-six Spanish young people aged 18–25 years were assessed. Global perceived health self-care was predicted by Value of health and Conscientiousness, both in females ( R2 = 0.185; F = 29.661; p < 0.001) and males ( R2 = 0.154; F = 17.849; p < 0.001). The results have shown gender differences in health self-care habits. Health promotion policies should include specific health consciousness-based strategies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-361
Author(s):  
Magda Pieczka ◽  
Isidoropaolo Casteltrione

Objective: The aim of this article is to extend and elaborate ways of conceptualising, enabling and practising peer leadership in whole-school alcohol education programmes. Design: Qualitative study involving individual and group interviews. Setting: The AlcoLOLs project took place in six secondary schools in North East Edinburgh (Scotland) from 2013 to 2015. Methods: A total of 21 individual and 4 group interviews with young people aged 14–18 who acted as peer leaders in the AlcoLOLs project. Interviews were conducted throughout the duration of the project as a means of hearing peer leaders’ individual voices, monitoring progress and evaluating the intervention. Data were analysed using the principles of thematic analysis. Results: The intervention demonstrates transformative multilevel learning (i.e. cognition, civic/communal attitudes, self-identity, self-efficacy, specific communication/team skills) for peer leaders resulting from the shared leadership process. Results indicate that there is an element of continuity between antecedents, process and outcomes of shared leadership which, in the context of peer education, needs to be seen as an iterative rather than a linear process. Drawing on these findings, a model for a whole-school alcohol peer education intervention is developed. The model is underpinned by critical dialogic principles and reframes alcohol consumption as action rather than behaviour. Conclusion: This article redefines peer leadership in alcohol education interventions for young people as a process involving formal, informal, individual and shared leadership. Combined with a whole-school dialogic intervention, this approach can lead to the development of alcohol consumption/abstinence as a practice that focuses on the articulation of a self-identity drawing on both individual/personal and civic aspects.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Thu Maung Soe

<p>In Myanmar, youth are traditionally perceived as a less significant segment of the society. Hence, youth development issues and problems around youth have attracted little attention from community members. Youth empowerment is a human resource development tool and a process designed to help the development of young individuals, by enabling them to solve their own problems and contribute to the development of their community.  This qualitative study examines youth empowerment initiatives of one youth-led organization and its alumni by employing Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and conducting semi-structured interviews. This study focuses on how a youth-led organization has empowered youth to become socially engaged for social transformation and get involved in the country’s development sector.  Results show that empowerment is an ongoing process and reveal a new dimension of youth empowerment in the Myanmar context. This study found that the nature of youth-led development organizations for youth and social change movements differed. Youth-led empowerment actions offer learning opportunities and create spaces for young people to participate in community movements. Moreover, Socially Engaged Buddhism (SEB) is an alternative to the conventional empowerment approaches, which offers Buddhist principles for individual development of young people and stimulates youth to get involved in collective social change movements to tackle structural injustices.      </p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Thu Maung Soe

<p>In Myanmar, youth are traditionally perceived as a less significant segment of the society. Hence, youth development issues and problems around youth have attracted little attention from community members. Youth empowerment is a human resource development tool and a process designed to help the development of young individuals, by enabling them to solve their own problems and contribute to the development of their community.  This qualitative study examines youth empowerment initiatives of one youth-led organization and its alumni by employing Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and conducting semi-structured interviews. This study focuses on how a youth-led organization has empowered youth to become socially engaged for social transformation and get involved in the country’s development sector.  Results show that empowerment is an ongoing process and reveal a new dimension of youth empowerment in the Myanmar context. This study found that the nature of youth-led development organizations for youth and social change movements differed. Youth-led empowerment actions offer learning opportunities and create spaces for young people to participate in community movements. Moreover, Socially Engaged Buddhism (SEB) is an alternative to the conventional empowerment approaches, which offers Buddhist principles for individual development of young people and stimulates youth to get involved in collective social change movements to tackle structural injustices.      </p>


1980 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Crawford

This article considers some implications of the new health consciousness and movements—holistic health and self-care—for the definition of and solution to problems related to “health.” Healthism represents a particular way of viewing the health problem, and is characteristic of the new health consciousness and movements. It can best be understood as a form of medicalization, meaning that it still retains key medical notions. Like medicine, healthism situates the problem of health and disease at the level of the individual. Solutions are formulated at that level as well. To the extent that healthism shapes popular beliefs, we will continue to have a non-political, and therefore, ultimately ineffective conception and strategy of health promotion. Further, by elevating health to a super value, a metaphor for all that is good in life, healthism reinforces the privatization of the struggle for generalized well-being.


Author(s):  
Natasha Thomas-Jackson

RAISE IT UP! Youth Arts and Awareness (RIU) is an organization that promotes youth engagement, expression, and empowerment through the use of performance and literary arts and social justice activism. We envision a world where youth are fully recognized, valued, and supported as artist-activists and emerging thought leaders, working to create a world that is just, intersectional, and inclusive. Two fundamental tenets shape RIU’s policies, practices, and pedagogy. The first is that creative self-expression and culture making are powerful tools for personal and social transformation. The second is that social justice is truly possible only if and when we are willing to have transparent and authentic conversations about the oppression children experience at the hands of the adults in their lives. We are committed to amplifying youth voices and leadership and building cross-generational solidarity among people of all ages, particularly those impacted by marginalization. Though RIU is focused on and driven by the youth, a large part of our work includes helping adult family members, educators, and community leaders understand the ways in which systemic oppression shapes our perceptions of and interactions with the young people in our homes, neighborhoods, institutions, and decision-making bodies.


Author(s):  
Ann Dadich ◽  
Katherine M. Boydell ◽  
Stephanie Habak ◽  
Chloe Watfern

This methodological article argues for the potential of positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship as a methodology to understand and promote positive experiences among young people. With reference to COVID-19, exemplars sourced from social media platforms and relevant organisations demonstrate the remarkable creative brilliance of young people. During these difficult times, young people used song, dance, storytelling, and art to express themselves, (re)connect with others, champion social change, and promote health and wellbeing. This article demonstrates the power of positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship to understand how young people use art to redress negativity via a positive lens of agency, peace, collectedness, and calm.


Author(s):  
Judy Gold ◽  
Megan S. C. Lim ◽  
Jane S. Hocking ◽  
Louise A. Keogh ◽  
Tim Spelman ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 824-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Michaelson ◽  
William Pickett ◽  
Colleen Davison

AbstractHolism is an ancient theme concept that has resurfaced in recent literature, and that requires informed and intentional use in order to preserve its utility. This paper provides a historical and conceptual reintroduction of the notion of holism as it relates to health, with the hopes of informing the term's use in public health discourse. It also addresses the challenges that a lack of conceptual clarity about holistic health imposes on public health and health promotion discussions. It describes how the use and conceptualizations of holism are shifting in health promotion and argues that failing to accurately define and delineate its scope risks diluting its utility for future health promotion applications. We address these two problems, and build an argument for a rediscovery of the theory of holism in public health and health promotion, globally.


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