Health is considered as a basic right of all human beings, it is therefore essential that all people must receive health services needed to maintain their optimum capacity and be physically and economically productive. But despite this idea of health, many are still deprived of this basic right in reality. This has become one of the challenges that the medical school of Ateneo de Zamboanga aims to improve.
Part of the strategies needed for a community health program to be effective and successful is to involve the community stakeholders in the planning and execution of interventions. For that reason, the medical students decided to meet with the local officials of the municipality. We had the opportunity to meet with the vice-mayor and municipal councillors during their session at Sangunian bayan. We had the privilege to present to them the different health problems that we identified in some of the barangays where we are assigned that is under their leadership and jurisdiction. We presented our accomplishments as well as the future plans. We also met with local leaders of the barangay. We believe that through their active participation and influence to the people, we hope to solve health problems from the grassroots. We believe that through the partnership and intersectoral linkages that we created, will translate into successful implementation of the health programs and most of all will result to the improvement of health of the people.