For Practictioners

Linking practitioners & organizations across the globe

The Building Healthy & Equitable Communities project connects practitioners from the global network Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) with practitioners from the United States, specifically the San Francisco Bay Area. The project aims to share cross-cultural experiences and practices that promote more equitable and healthy communities, inform current practice, and build a global network of practitioners, all towards reducing health inequities in communities around the world.  We are particularly focused on how successful "slum upgrading" practices in the global south might be shared and adopted in communities grappling with health inequities in the US.  The project brings together practitioners for intensive workshops, field visits and knowledge exchanges in both the US and in the global south, and links the workshop content to the on-going social change strategies of organizations around the world.  The University of California, Berkeley, Center for Global Healthy Cities houses the project and facilitates the exchanges and network.  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides core support.  

Outcomes

1.  A global network of healthy community builders
2. A resource guide for linking slum upgrading practices in the global south to health equity strategies in the north
3.  New projects in the US that utilize insights from slum upgrading in the global south
4.  Global communication platform to share successful strategies and challenges for building healthy communities

Objectives 

1. Connect efforts and practitioners.
2. Create a space for cross-cultural learning.
3. Build a global community health equity network. 
4. Exchange data and practices. 
5. Conduct two exchange workshops over next 18 months with 6-8 SDI participants and 6-8 Bay Area participants. 
6. Propose joint projects and/or interventions.
7. Measure progress and develop online materials and media/communications support

Why SDI and Bay Area Activists?

• The SDI slum upgrading approach has much to offer U.S.-based healthy community building efforts.
• Richmond and East Oakland activists can share innovative practices that might enhance slum upgrading work around the world.
• UC Berkeley can provide a platform for cross-cultural collaboration and practice exchange with long-term community partners.
• SDI and Bay Area activists work within different cultural and political contexts but are addressing similar community challenges, including poverty and economic opportunity, community infrastructure, housing and displacement, safety and wellbeing, and rights and social justice policies.