Stručni rad
Sandwell Health’s Other Economic summit July 9th 10th 2009 thinking global acting local
John Middleton
; Sandwell primarna zdravstvena zaštita Trust 438 High Street, West Bromwich B709LD
Sažetak
From the 1980s, The Other Economic Summits (TOES) meetings have taken place around the world
to coincide with meetings of the G6, now G8 leaders of the most powerful economic nations of the
world.(1) The TOES tradition has been continued in Sandwell, a small area of the West Midlands of
England, where we hold the SHOES meetings, Sandwell Health’s Other Economic Summits.(2)
Sandwell is a small area, of 300000 inhabitants, of considerable ethnic diversity. We are part of
what is called the ‘Black Country’ where the industrial revolution began. Sandwell is still reliant on
manufacturing but is an area of considerable deprivation and environmental degradation. Sandwell
was a birthplace for the Methodist church and was prominent in the antislavery movement. Malcolm
X visited Smethwick, one of our six towns, shortly before he was assassinated. Sandwell also hosts
major centres for Sikhism, Hinduism and black African Caribbean Christianity. The area has a strong
tradition of social justice and for seeing our place in the world and our responsibility to ‘think global
and act local’. Each year we invite prestigious speakers and take time out from routine health
service considerations, to consider the greater problems of the world, climate change, human rights,
terrorism conflict and their effects on health. There have been seven Shoes events over the last 11
years. The first was in 1998 when Clinton brought the G8 to Birmingham and we have been
established as an annual event since 2005, the day after the 7/7 bombings in London and the G8
summit at Gleneagles, in Scotland.(3)
SHOES focuses on economic and environmental influences on health. Our banner for this year was
‘Green, Well, Fair’. We looked at the effects of the credit crunch on health and what local responses
we can make from the health service. The subtext for our international health day was ‘Health for
Some’ reflecting on unfairness in global health with case studies from Africa, Palestine, and the
Balkans. This gave us an opportunity to reflect on what Sandwell should contribute, in thinking
globally, acting locally. Almost 200 delegates attended over the two days.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
297502
URI
Datum izdavanja:
7.7.2009.
Posjeta: 54 *