SDA health expo to be held annually

31 May, 2015 - 00:05 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Desire Ncube – Religion Writer

THE Seventh-day Adventist Church’s health expo, which saw over 27 000 people accessing free medical care, will become an annual programme.

The two-week health expo, whose main centre was in Chitungwiza, had 600 medical professionals voluntarily working in clinics through an initiative that ran concurrently with the SDA’s Revelation of Hope crusade.

SDA president Dr Ted Wilson led the crusade, preaching to multitudes in between meetings with senior Government officials and businesspeople.

An estimated 30 000 baptisms were done as the health expo went to Harare suburbs like Mufakose, Glen Norah, Arcadia, Dzivaresekwa and Highlands.

The initiative covered the country, with church services and health expos in Bulawayo, Kadoma, Gweru and Kwekwe.

Among the highlights was a conference hosted by the Adventist Development Relief Agency (Adra) Zimbabwe in partnership with the Health and Child Care Ministry’s Non-Communicable Diseases unit.

Speaking on the role of faith-based organisations in fighting non-communicable diseases, Adra country director Mrs Judith Musvosvi said, “The modifiable behavioural risk factors are known: tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and harmful use of alcohol. These are known to increase the risk of NCDs. We have to know and understand our enemy better in order to be effective in fighting against them.”

Mrs Musvosvi said conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, cancers and mental ill-health had become widespread.

“One key grassroots movement that we have in Zimbabwe hardly surpassed by any other is the church — our faith-based communities. Most of us belong to one congregation or the other. The churches are already mobilised.

“Our vulnerable, our sick, our rich, our children and our elderly are in these congregations .We may differ in doctrines but the health provides a level ground across most denominations.”

Author of “Health and Wellness”, Adventist World Church health ministries director Dr Peter Landless, encouraged people to learn from his book. “God inspired me to write this book and I believe it has power to change lives. If you read this book you will never remain the same,” Dr Landless said.

Deputy director of non-communicable diseases in the Health Ministry, Mrs Clemencia Bakasa, thanked Adra Zimbabwe for programmes such as these.

“We have learnt a lot of things that we will implement as the ministry. It is our hope that other denominations will do likewise because a healthy nation is a wealthy nation,” said Mrs Bakasa.

Adra works in more than 120 countries and was founded in 1956. It is head quartered in Maryland in the United States.

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