Azores are pioneers in health literacy project in schools - Communication

Secretaria Regional da Saúde e Desporto

The Regional Secretariat for Health and Sport, through the Regional Directorate for Health, and in partnership with the Regional Directorate for Education and Educational Administration, announces the launch of a pilot project in the field of health literacy, following the guidelines of the Schools for Health in Europe (SHE) Network Foundation.

SHE is a non-governmental organisation, supported by the World Health Organisation, which promotes the networking of several countries in Europe and Central Asia. Its main goal is to improve the health and knowledge about the health of children and young people in Europe by focusing specifically on schools.

The foundation defends the role of school establishments as vehicles for health, which is reflected in the implementation of the Health Promotion School programme. It intends to make this programme widely accepted and recognised in the WHO European Region, recommending the "SHE Approach" when addressing Health Literacy in a school context.

This event is a decisive milestone for the Azores, as it marks the moment when the first school in the Region has committed to integrating the "SHE Approach" as a way of implementing its Health Literacy project.

The presentation of this project, in which Portugal is one of 46 European cooperating countries, will take place on Friday at the Tomás de Borba Basic Education and Secondary School.