Health Justice: Be a Health Champion!

Meti Berhanu

Our words are important. Our actions are important. For 5 years our Aiken High School Students have collaborated with Cancer Justice Network as work-based learners to raise awareness of the need for greater access to healthcare among our most vulnerable communities. We had our students respond to the prompts, then we placed them in a “smart” wordle to generate the most important and frequent words. Below is a collective writing assignment of their important and frequent words paired with their important and frequent actions taken to achieve the goal of greater access to healthcare among our most vulnerable communities.

1. Describe what a Health Champion is and what one does?

A Health Champion is a person who is there to care for others’ health, and they give support and information to our community to solve problems about healthcare. A Health Champion is someone who shows leadership, responsibility, and skill to create a future of growth, change, and awareness for justice.

2. Why is health justice an important issue for you?

Health justice is an important issue for us because we care about others’ health struggles because of race, background, and family issues. The declining health in our country is a survival crisis, but we believe in improving the long term care and love for all.

3. What is your role in helping to provide health justice to others: What actions have you taken?

Our role in providing health justice to others is to take action as a champion of fairness in healthcare through organized community health fairs.

The actions we have taken are raising awareness by speaking, teaching, promoting, and seeking trust. Raising awareness through our volunteerism has addressed the crises by convincing people to get vaccination shots, learn about cancer issues, connect to doctors, and access important health information.

4. What are some important life skills you learned while working for Cancer Justice Network as a Health Champion? How will those life lessons be used by you?

Some important life skills we learned while working for Cancer Justice Network as a Health Champion are showing empathy, leadership, and teamwork. These life lessons will be used by us to help to raise awareness of healthcare and get rid of the fear and discomfort to make a better future.

5. In what ways can health justice overcome the challenges of political, economic, and societal pressure?

Health justice can overcome political, economic, and societal pressure by allowing healthcare for all by speaking out and not being afraid of anything because ignoring a person’s needs can damage our community.