This organization promotes healthy living among African Immigrants

EDITORS' WALL

Having interacted with Africans and recent immigrants from Africa in the Bay area for one full year, from January 2014 to May 2015, I have tried gathering information on number of immigrants from Africa living in the entire Bay Area. Anecdotal information estimates give about 30,000 African, Atlantic & Indian ocean Islands-born immigrants above 21 years live in the entire Bay Area. In presenting this note I hope to reach out to whoever can support the desire for promoting practices that in turn improve on quality of life, mental-health and nutrition of beneficiaries (whose population estimation was arrived at anecdotally).

Africans who are new in America are faced with challenges that in turn affect the way they access health care services and the way they engage in healthy living.  A paucity of tailored and funded programs catering to  essential ‘diet, play and mental health’ among Africans has left them to access other integration and social services which are well funded but subsume the need for a stand-alone DPM program.  This is a gap that can be filled by a dedicated communication for behavior change. This is what Bay Heal was founded to do.

The fifteen Health needs among recent immigrants from Africa

1. Popularizing registration for Health Insurance-Medical.

2. Popularizing registration for Health Insurance-Dentical.

3. Access to/ and making popular the usage of such programs like; RAPID (Rapid Anti-retroviral Program Initiative for new diagnoses).

4. Mobilization towards contributing population group in the San Francisco ground zero to HIV initiative (“a first city in the world with no new infections, no stigma and no deaths”).

5. Getting involved in initiatives that erase financial and social barriers to get tested and treated for HIV/Hepatitis/STIs (e.g., benefiting from early ARV initiation, “universal” testing and avoidance of beachheads).

6. Building structures against stigma related to attending hospitals and other tendencies towards excuses to avoid hospitals or health care initiatives (e.g., using African community “elders,” “mama,” “uncles” and community/social events).

7. Initiate a poster person as a drive targeting long-stay Africans (who are now residents) and new immigrants from Africa on the path to documented residents.

8. Families with under-21 year olds need to know and be attached to “under 21 clinics" and Nutrition education.

9. Play and recreation as one way to maintain manageable body-mass index.

10. Negotiating the benefits’ structure following a given diagnosis.

11. Negotiating and accessing services of a well-mother/woman clinic for women/females.

12. Mapping out and networking with other service providers

13. Design/disseminate good Diet, Play and Mental Health (DPM) information, education, materials.

14. Develop Frequently Asked Questions along these or any other health outcomes..

15. Establish an executive Staff and Resource Center.

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Contact the Editors:

Bay Area Healthy Living and Communication Platform

1230 Market Street #150

San Francisco, CA 94102

E-mail: bayheal@gmail.com