Rural health solution – Healthy Villages

An innovative way to improve lives in rural communities through Healthcare and good nutrition

Vision
To positively impact the quality life of the most underserved populations through access to good healthcare, nutrition and other basic services.

Mission
To create a web of Healthy Villages that are financially self-sustaining and that are collaborating with the aim to expand and reach more people.

Strategy
To innovatively merge and balance healthcare and agricultural operations and revenue streams and in so-doing drastically decrease access barriers.

Introduction – Background & the two pillars

As stated by the United Nations (UN) “A village can be considered healthy when rates of infectious diseases are low, when community members have access to health care that meet their needs, nutrition that improves and sustains their basic services and, and when the community lives in a state of peace and harmony”.

Unfortunately, this is not the case in many communities in developing countries where global challenges such as climate change, terrorism and wars seem to be gaining ground and where the societal and communal fabrics in the populations are being weakened. Results are less vibrant communities with decreasing opportunities for the younger generations and high rates of economic migration as a result.

Healthy Villages aims to help slow down and ultimately stop this trend by improving the quality of life of underserved rural communities worldwide by providing access to healthcare, nutrition, and auxiliary services that have the capacity to connect these communities to the rest of the world. Healthy Villages envisages to realize this goal by innovatively integrating two business models, the pillars, which are the provision of health care (through a modular healthcare facility) and Nutrition (through a horticulture farm) that are conceptualised, build and operated in close collaboration with local champions.

The healthcare pillar will be a complete modular healthcare facility designed to fit the exact needs and demands of the communities in which they are installed. Essentially, the facilities will be geared towards the provision of effective and accessible health care ranging from primary care to complex surgical care. At the heart of the healthcare pillar will be (1) reducing barriers to seeking care, (2) reducing barriers to accessing care and (3) reducing barriers to supplying care.

The Nutrition pillar will be focused on making efficient use of available (farm) land to facilitate plant propagation and cultivation through the deployment of innovative horticulture. Proper roll-out will ultimately lead to improve plant growth, yields, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental stresses. In addition, plant conservation, landscape restoration, soil and management will also be made possible in the communities.

Supporting the two pillars are auxiliary services that are needed to run both pillars. These auxiliary services are access to clean water, electricity, IT and communication, education, mobility, and good management. In addition to being mechanism put in place run the two main pillars, the auxiliary services will also be available to communities living in the direct vicinity of the healthy village.

When fully operational, we believe that Healthy Villages can lead to other indirect benefits such as being shelters that offer protection to women and children suffering from abuse, and neutral zones in conflict areas that can foster reconciliation between fighting communities.