HERAF

HERAF with financial support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through Physicians for Human Rights USA, creates awareness, educates health professionals, civil society organisations and other stakeholders that stigma and discrimination both in health care settings and among the public is human rights violations and should be reduced.

The programme with financial support from Akiba Uhaki Foundation is strengthening the capacity of health care workers to promote the fundamental right to health for sexual minorities in Kenya.

In this programme HERAF provides accurate and up to date information on the right to health and other related economic, social and cultural rights. The programme enables health care workers and civil society organizations to understand and acknowledge health is a human right issue; and that health related issues including HIV&AIDS need to be addressed from a rights based perspective.

Health professionals from African countries highly affected by HIV/AIDS can and must provide strong national and international leadership to promote sound HIV/AIDS funding, prevention, treatment and care policies.  They are at the center of the AIDS pandemic and response, and are uniquely positioned to work with People Living with AIDS (PLWA) to monitor, report, advocate, educate and lead national efforts to end the pandemic. In addition to direct involvement in clinical care, African health professionals can be critical resources to policymakers and donors to assure that decisions about resource commitments and the programs and policies that accompany them reflect the best knowledge of medicine, nursing and public health.

Participants discussing health rights issues:

Health professionals can also promote health, civil society empowerment, good governance and human rights by ensuring that citizens have a voice in how their government is run and how policies are formulated and enforced, all within a human rights framework. By virtue of their skills, expertise, education, and social capital, health workers have incredible potential to both influence health policy and build a movement that holds governments and donors accountable for policies, programs and funding in the health sector and beyond.