The India Post, Chandigarh 24th October, 2008 :A short course on Health Promotion was held from 18-30 Sept. 2008 at School of Public Health, PGIMER, Chandigarh under the guidance of Prof. Amarjeet Singh in collaboration with Public Health Research and Development Foundation (PHRDF). Twenty eight postgraduate scholars of Preventive Medicine/ Public Health from North India attended this course.
Various new strategies for improving the health of people by adopting health promotion concept were discussed during the course.This course had helped in widening the horizon of thinking and enhancing leadership quality of the trainees. This course also gave them an exposure to a variety of teaching methods and helped them in evaluating health promotion orientation of various programs.
A training manual was also given to the trainees. It was compiled by Dr.Atreyi Ganguli, Dr.Rajit Gupta and Dr. Gaurav Aggarwal. This manual is collection of selected articles from various sources. It highlights the concepts and strategies of Health Promotion. It will act as a ready reference for trainees after they finish this course.
Guest faculty from renowned institutes trained the participants viz. Dr.Sanjay Chaturvedi from UCMS, Dr. Rajni Bagga from NIHFW, New Delhi and Dr.Jugal Kishore from MAMC, New Delhi. In addition, eminent faculty from Punjab University viz. Dr. Sanjay Wadwalkar, Dr. Meenakshi Malhotra, Dr. Ramanjeet Johal , Dr. Amir Sultana, Dr.Jitender Mohan and Mr.Gaurav Gaur were also the resource persons for the course. Others speakers included Swami Brahmeshananda from Ramakrishna Mission, Vaidya Madan Gulati from AYUSH, Chandigarh, Mr.Balwinder Kumar from Govt. Instt of Yoga, Mr.Santosh Kumar Singh GCG-11, Dr.Gaurav Chhabra, Director, NGO Humlog and Dr.Avnish Jolly.
In house faculty members from School of Public Health viz. Dr.Amarjeet Singh, Dr.Manmeet Kaur, Dr.Madhu Gupta, Dr.Binod Patro, Dr. Sonu goel also delivered lectures in this course. A quiz was also organized at the end of the course. Dr.Navpreet and his team won the quiz. Best presentation award was won by the team of Punjab University MPH students. A trip to city museum, parks, heritage pond, rock garden and lake etc. was also organized to give exposure of the healthy city concept to the participants.
The unique feature of this course was that it was a self financed course. Registration fees paid by the participants was the only source of funding. There was no support from the corporate sector or from pharmaceutical companies. The main focus of this course was on academics.