26 September marked World Environmental Health Day (WEHD) which has been celebrated every year since 2011.
This year’s theme of “Climate change challenges, time for global Environmental Health to act in unison” aimed to draw attention to the affect’s climate change is having on vulnerable communities and how environmental health professionals play a vital role in protecting communities against the challenges of a variable climate.
Many activities took place around the globe in connection to this big event from Australia to Zimbabwe.
Environmental Health Australia (EHA) organised a competition for environmental health students. In order to enter the competitions students required to create a 2-minute informational video, or an e-poster based on the topics with the winner being announced on the 26th September via the EHA social media pages. You can see the winning submission here.
In Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Environmental Health Practitioners Association (ZEHPA) had a very successful celebration event at National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo.
The event was also honouring the memory of Zimbabweans and those who had their properties damaged and those still missing until as a result of the Tropical Cyclone Idai (March 2019) which affected the Manicaland Province. The Tropical Cyclone Idai is one of the most recent sad examples of the negative impacts of Climate Change and looking at this year's WEHD theme, ZEHPA had gathered all relevant Environmental Health stakeholders to act in unison towards mitigating the effects of climate change.
The Guest of Honour was Mr Victor Nyamandi the Director Environmental Health Services from Ministry of Health and Child Care and the key note speech was prepared by the IFEH President Dr Selva Mudaly.
Various Government, NGO, Local Authorities, Academics and Stakeholders converged and celebrated the event with plenty of local print and media covering the event, it became part of the main news bulletin for the day across various radio and TV stations.
For more information about World Environmental Health Day and also find out how other countries celebrated please see the International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) website.
