John Hopkins University and GHS end “GoodLife Campaign”

Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - Mr Daniel Paa Kwesi Ankomah, a 24-year-old sales person at Koko King, a breakfast packing company, has been adjudged winner of GoodLife Campaign game show and took home GHc5,000 as his prize.

The campaign launched in November 2010 and organised by John Hopkins University (JHU), USA, in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service (GHS), was to inculcate in Ghanaians the need to stay healthy and practice healthy lifestyles.

A statement issued in Accra on Tuesday copied to the GNA, noted that the campaign created a platform for a wide variety of health topics to be promoted and in addition, addressed social and cultural issues related to the prevention of diseases.

Riding on the theme; “Goodlife Live It Well” the campaign reiterated the need to avoid preventable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, heart attacks and other fatal diseases in order to enjoy life to the fullest.

The statement said as part of the traditional method of communicating the need to live a healthy life, JHU, put together an intriguing game show on television which gave the general public an opportunity to test and exercise their general knowledge in health with a winner being announced weekly.

Dr Frank Nyonator, Acting Director, GHS, urged Ghanaians to continue to live healthy lives adding that the only way to enjoy one’s life was when one lived well.

Aimed at improving the health status of Ghanaians, the Good Life - Live it Well was generally about doing the things they loved most in good health such as watching football, watching movies, chatting with friends, reading a book and caring for the family.

The statement said the campaign formed part of the Ghana Behaviour Change Support (BCS) project which is a four-year initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and managed by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Communication Programmes (JHU/CCP) with CARE and PLAN International as partners.

“The overall purpose of the BCS project is to assist GHS at the national, regional and district levels to support its efforts to achieve health related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through sustained and coherent social and Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) interventions.

This aims to blend community, interpersonal, and mass media approaches in behavioural change and healthy lifestyles.

BCS aims to increase demand and use of commodities, services and create positive behaviours in maternal, neonatal and child health, family planning, malaria prevention and treatment.