Overview and Introduction Professor Leslie London, UCT, Learning Network for Health and Human Rights Professor Leslie London reminded the meeting of the previous colloquium held in 2014 in which there were about 100 participants who discussed the future of HCs. This Colloquium is a follow on, and responds to new policy developments such as the re-engineering of our Health System, the introduction of the National Health Insurance (NHI) and the Ideal Clinic programme, all of which will not succeed if communities do not have a voice. The previous Colloquium was part of a previous EU-funded project concentrating on building the capacity of HCs in the Western and Eastern Cape and identified a gap in the Social Determinants of Health, that lie outside of the health facilities and challenge HCs to broaden their mandate. In this current EU-funded Community Systems Strengthening project, UCT, Training for Transition, Women on Farms Project, the Cape Metropolitan Health Forum, Peoples Health Movement and the Learning Network for Health and Human Rights, are building the capacity of Health Committees to provide leadership and network at a community level to address the social determinants of health in their communities. He also outlined the objectives and format of the meeting and urged the participants to come up with action plans that take this work forward in concrete ways. Keynote address: National Department of Health (NDoH): Primary Health Care directorate Jeanette Hunter, National Department of Health, Deputy Director, Primary Health Care Jeanette Hunter, the deputy director general of the primary health care directorate in the National Department of Health delivered a keynote address, centered around the progress of health committees in South Africa. She conveyed that:
Overview and Introduction Professor Leslie London, UCT, Learning Network for Health and Human Rights Professor Leslie London reminded the meeting of the previous colloquium held in 2014 in which there were about 100 participants who discussed the future of HCs. This Colloquium is a follow on, and responds to new policy developments such as the re-engineering of our Health System, the introduction of the National Health Insurance (NHI) and the Ideal Clinic programme, all of which will not succeed if communities do not have a voice. The previous Colloquium was part of a previous EU-funded project concentrating on building the capacity of HCs in the Western and Eastern Cape and identified a gap in the Social Determinants of Health, that lie outside of the health facilities and challenge HCs to broaden their mandate. In this current EU-funded Community Systems Strengthening project, UCT, Training for Transition, Women on Farms Project, the Cape Metropolitan Health Forum, Peoples Health Movement and the Learning Network for Health and Human Rights, are building the capacity of Health Committees to provide leadership and network at a community level to address the social determinants of health in their communities. He also outlined the objectives and format of the meeting and urged the participants to come up with action plans that take this work forward in concrete ways. Keynote address: National Department of Health (NDoH): Primary Health Care directorate Jeanette Hunter, National Department of Health, Deputy Director, Primary Health Care Jeanette Hunter, the deputy director general of the primary health care directorate in the National Department of Health delivered a keynote address, centered around the progress of health committees in South Africa. She conveyed that: