Knowledge Cafe - Ideas Supporting Children's Health

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Dec 14, 2018
by Anna Rawe
Knowledge Cafe - Ideas Supporting Children's Health

Facilitators discuss main lessons from Knowledge Cafe during Healthy Children, Healthy Weight

Photo by Jaredd Craig on Unsplash

During Healthy Children, Healthy Weight, participants took part in a knowledge cafe with several stations showcasing projects supporting children's health. Participants moved every 30 minutes among stations.

Each table had a facilitator who gave a brief impulse talk on the topic and then led the discussion. We spoke with each facilitator to garner what their take-aways were.

“The thing that particularly came out… was the relational nature of the work we do and the significance of - when you build a collaboration - how you need to be thinking long term about how you can establish relationships and how you can keep working on those relationships during the life course of whatever your collaboration is doing… disseminating knowledge was another theme that came out… I was trying to emphasize the need for the whole of community responses and the best way to do that is effectively design, run and then evaluate collaborations.”

Penny Dakin, Australia

Acting CEO of the Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY)

“I heard different perspectives - how communication was strategic in the work of different kinds of organizations or governments… there is a path to really use communication especially in non-profits and government in a way that it can really help. For example, the programmatic area or the development of public policy…. Normally, what you see is the communication helping the programmatic area… but in the foundation I have been working in [both of] the two [areas] became programmatic - they work together, exchanging knowledge and information.”

Eduardo de Queiroz, Brazil

Former CEO of the Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal

“Designing policies around data was the main theme… there are other information [sources] like polling behavior of people, and usage of transport, if more people use public transport, so it’s basically behavioral data that can also get integrated into the epidemiological data, combining both how can we align our policies with the targets we keep for ourselves... [and] how do we learn on the ground then take it back to the government to negotiate for certain changes that we would like in policies or targets…”

Shalini Rudra, India

Consultant for TATA Trusts

“I think [what I wanted to get across was] the importance of building trust with children and helping them do that for themselves was a really important message, that they can do so given an enabling environment… our work is about growing that capability because once they’ve got it, then can then share it with others, and Kitbag is there just to get you started.”

Margaret Hannah, UK

IFF Kitbag Lead and Director of Health Programmes

“The things that we’re discussing in terms of the health and well-being of children, [I wanted to convey] that it really does filter down through very many aspects of the way we create and shape our cities, and that relates to programs and policies but also in terms of the actual physical environment that we create. Very rarely when we’re designing cities do we actually think about what effect the planning of the city will have on a child.”

Natalia Krysiak, Australia

Architect

“We talked about the country strategies and how it’s a lot of top bottom approaches but a bottom to top approach of what the policy should actually be. I think that then there were a lot of questions the participants asked like, ‘How is it possible?’ Then we talked about happiness: how do you measure? Then we went onto the indicators… the Gross National Happiness Survey that is done every four years, and how the finding from there, the analysis from there, actually feeds into the country program which eventually becomes the five-year plan… there is continuity. It’s a long-term goal, the whole country of Bhutan actually has one goal, and that is achieving Gross National Happiness”

Dorji Ohm, Bhutan

Executive Director of the Bhutan Youth Development Fund


The program Healthy Children, Healthy Weight is part of Salzburg Global's multi-year series Health and Health Care Innovation. This year’s program is being held in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.