Medicus Mundi and Aliança para a Saúde hold a special session of the ACTIVA-TE Film Festival at Eduardo Mondlane University
Medicus Mundi and Aliança para a Saúde held last Friday, September 2, 2022, at 5:00 pm, a special session of the ACTIVA-TE Film Festival on ʽʽThe Main Challenges in Exercising the Right to Health in Mozambiqueʼʼ.
Medicus Mundi and Aliança para a Saúde held last Friday, September 2, 2022, at 5:00 pm, a special session of the ACTIVA-TE Film Festival on ʽʽThe Main Challenges in Exercising the Right to Health in Mozambiqueʼʼ, at the School of Communication and Arts at Eduardo Mondhane University.
The special session was aimed at Communication and Arts students at the University, with the main objective of contributing to the education and awareness of citizens about Activism and the Right to Health and to bring awareness to the important role that Communication and the Arts play in the context of health.
The event, which lasted just over 2 hours, had on its agenda the screening of the film ʽʽCalçasʼʼ directed by Paulo Guambe and a debate panel with the participation of António Mate, Human Rights Defender and collaborator of the Citizen's Observatory for Health, Paulo Guambe, Filmmaker and University Lecturer, moderated by Miranda Munhua, specialist in Health Communication and collaborator of Medicus Mundi.
The film pants is a short film produced in 2018 by Paulo Guambe, within the scope of the school internship of training in Cinema and Audiovisual at ISARC, whose story revolves around a young man who loses his life after not having access to medical care in a public hospital by virtue of presenting himself dressed in shorts.
On the occasion, Paulo Guambe reaffirmed that cinema and art in general can serve as effective instruments for solving practical problems in society. In an excerpt from his film ʽʽPantsʼʼ, Guambe states that ʽʽArt should not be for fun, it should be made to change the attitudes of power holdersʼʼ.
On the occasion, António Mate stressed that health is a universal right that cannot be negotiated. For him, the projected film illustrates some of the barriers that users find in accessing health services in Mozambique ʽʽ we have seen that the lack of cordiality can determine a person's life, that is to say, these barriers that we find can come to cost the life of a citizenʼʼ.
Some of the challenges in the Exercise of the Right to Health in Mozambique are related to illegal charges, lack of knowledge in relation to reporting instruments, lack of empathy on the part of health providers, the problem of infrastructure, the lack of inclusion of people with disabilities, the difficult access to medicines in hospitals, among others…
It should be noted that this film exhibition is part of the Activa-te campaign, which was launched last February by the Aliança para a Saúde, to defend the Right to Health in Mozambique in the areas of Right to Health, Obstetric Violence, Improvement of Services to Women Victims of GBV, Rights and Duties of the Patient, Sexual Diversity and Positive Masculinities, Nutrition and Community Health, with a focus on obtaining positive effects for the strengthening of the National Health System.
This activity has been carried out with the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) within the Agreement 18-CO1-1096 «Improving the population's health based on its Social Determinants, with special focus on nutrition, through the strengthening of Primary Health Care as the best strategy to ensure the right to health and the collaboration of civil society, research institutions, and the National Health System». The content of this news is the sole responsibility of medicusmundi and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the AECID.