About Us - Our history
In 1977, Healthlink Worldwide, then called Appropriate
Health Resources Technologies Action Group (AHRTAG), was founded by Dr Katherine
Elliott and other members of the Intermediate
Technology Development Group Health Panel.
The organisation was founded to help health workers get access to information.
Too often doctors and nurses in developing countries were working in hospitals
and clinics with no access to libraries. Where information was written
it was not always in the right language or relevant to the circumstances
people were working in. It was AHRTAG's intention to bridge the gap between
what information was available and what was needed.
One of AHRTAG's first achievements was to co-host a two-day international press briefing for the WHO/UNICEF conference at Alma Ata, which launched primary health care as a means of achieving 'health for all'.
With its remit to make information accessible AHRTAG's primary health care classification scheme was quickly developed. It is still used today as a model for other organisations working with health and disability information.
One of AHRTAG's first newsletters was launched in 1980 to promote oral rehydration for preventing and treating diarrhoeal diseases. Partners soon came forward to publish editions for French, Portuguese and Spanish speaking communities in Africa and Latin America. An archive of the newsletter, Dialogue on Diarrhoea is available on the website: www.rehydrate.org/dd/index.html
AIDS Action: launched to exchange information about the prevention of HIV and AIDS (all issues are available at www.aidsaction.info)
ARI News: launched to provide practical information on the control of acute
respiratory infections, a leading cause of death of young children
CBR News: launched to exchange information on community-based rehabilitation and disabled people's rights.
The printed word
Further newsletters followed with production starting in the mid-eighties for:
- AIDS Action: launched to exchange information about the prevention of HIV and AIDS (all issues are available at www.aidsaction.info)
- ARI News: launched to provide practical information on the control of acute respiratory infections, a leading cause of death of young children
- CBR (Community Based Rehabilitation) News: launched to exchange information on community-based rehabilitation and disabled people's rights.
Alongside newsletters ARHTAG also set up field projects including an oral health education project for primary schools in New Delhi, India and a support project for four primary health care resource centres in Africa, Middle East and India,
Expansion
In the early nineties work expanded in the Middle East region with a new project
to improve access to primary health care information through
the development of resource centres and publications. Elsewhere, in Tanzania,
six zonal resource centres were launched in collaboration with the
Ministry of Health. In India, Braille editions of CBR News went into production
and AHRTAG started the newsletter, Health Action. It proved to be a popular
way for practitioners to exchange experiences in implementing programmers
in primary health care and related fields.
Our work with resource centres prompted the development of the popular Resource Centre Manual, which is still used today.
Later on in the decade Child Health Dialogue replaced Dialogue on Diarrhoea and ARI News to better cover a range of children's health and rights issues. Other collaborations included AIDS and child health programmes working together to produce materials on tuberculosis.
The Women's Health Development Project at Birzeit University, West Bank was established to identify women's health priorities and assess training needs for women's health services.
Healthlink Worldwide begins
In 1999 AHRTAG changed its name to Healthlink Worldwide. At this time a major ‘de-centralisation’ of the process of producing health information began, shifting away from partners adapting versions of newsletters produced in the ‘North’. Instead, with support from Healthlink Worldwide, partners became responsible for developing health communications, including newsletters.
Soon afterwards a five year programme on networking and learning in health - Exchange - was set up with the support of the Department of International Development.
Healthlink
combined its resource centre with the Centre for International Child Health
and together they created Source
- the International Information Support Centre. Source now has over 25,000
information resources on a range of subjects including HIV and AIDS, disability
and inclusion, mother and child health, information and communication technology
and participatory communication. Handicap International are also a partner.
Resources are available online, by CD-ROM and as printed materials.
Responsible for communication of DFID's Disability Knowledge and Research programme. Highlights include three roundtables engaging with over 100 delegates from 30 countries.
Child Centred Approaches to HIV and AIDS programmes unfold in Africa,
and our partners take Memory work over to Asia for the first time
Communicating for Advocacy reaches over 360 organisations across Asia
Millennium goals
As the new millennium progresses Healthlink Worldwide continues to expand
and develop its relationships with partners old and new. At the International
HIV and AIDS Conference in 2004 Healthlink Worldwide staff presented nine
projects at the global forum. Many partners met up here; it was a rare
opportunity for the global Healthink family to get together.
Our latest projects include the experiential Seeing in the Dark exhibition, part of the Communicating for Advocacy programme, and the International Memory Project is underway working with our partner NACWOLA, Uganda with funding from Comic Relief.
The communication training package - Quest - was developed and is now widely used as part of our capacity building activities. We have trainers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Healthlink
Worldwide managed the communication and knowledge component of DFID's Disability
Knowledge and Research programme, 2004-06, which included three roundtable
events for disabled people's organisations and policy makers in Malawi, India
and Cambodia.
More on our latest programmes (Projects and Issues)
More on the processes we use (What We Do)