Community Action for Healthy Eating

Summary

SPAN, in partnership with health care professionals, developed a heart healthy cookbook and cooking classes, as well as print and video tools to establish Community Kitchens within Newfoundland. SPAN used the support of both NLHHP and the Department of Health to develop community capacity and to leverage other human, in-kind, and financial resources. Community Kitchens uses a mutual-aid model. People on low/fixed income empower themselves as they work together for their families' food security and healthy eating. The project took action on the Income, Social Support Networks, and Healthy Child Development determinants of health.

The healthy eating initiative's key findings concern the process of partnering between government and community groups, the development and diffusion of user-friendly tools, and how project success and sustainability hinge upon the target population's ownership. NLHHP's partnership with SPAN enabled health care professionals to develop flexible ways of working with people rather than for them. The initiative's key learnings and products have been woven into existing projects, and are providing groundwork for future initiatives. People from the target group shaped the content and form of the cookbook and video; thus SPAN and NLHHP were able to produce culturally-appropriate and user-friendly tools. The Department of Health took a similar approach by developing the Community Kitchens manual in consultation with SPAN. The healthy eating initiative was sustainable because community agencies made the necessary social investment, while people on low/fixed income had ownership of the process and were committed to it.

Such a community mobilization approach works and is sustainable. The approach hinges on community leadership and intersectoral collaboration. Leadership grows when an initiative is driven and owned by the population.