Culminating with Self-Care Day on 24 July.
This symbolic day was chosen because self-care can be practiced “24 hours a day/7 days a week”.
According to this WHO-led initiative, self-care is about empowering people to be active agents in their own healthcare. Self-care interventions give people choice and the option to access healthcare wherever and whenever they want to.
Self-Care interventions have the capacity to bridge the gap for the 4.3 billion people who have inadequate or no access to essential health services. Add the 10 million global shortage of health workers, mainly in low-and-middle income countries, and its obvious that health services are stretched worldwide. And that is before you factor in humanitarian crises, pandemics, armed conflicts and climate change.
24 hours a day/7 days a week also describes a life affected by lymphoedema.
Disfigured by swelling, disabled by painful infections, shunned and stigmatised because of odour and superstition. This is daily life for 20 million people living with filariasis and podoconiosis related lymphedema, many without access to basic health education or information.
Research tells us that Self-care works, and we know that the people affected and their families are keen to learn how to help themselves and their loved ones. We believe that we can build a digital bridge to people living in even the most remote and inaccessible locations and deliver into their hands the self-care tools that they need to live the best possible life with lymphoedema.
Which is the reason the LKN exists.
Our digital educational tools are designed to bridge the knowledge gap in resource poor areas and deliver evidence based self-care tools into the hands of the people who need to use this vital information every day for their remaining life.
This Self-Care Day please consider an annual donation every July 24
Help us reach new communities in more countries with our digital Self-Care programs. We plan to continue to deliver essential self-care information to everyone who needs it, for as long as it takes to make sure that we fulfill the promise of the Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis and #LeaveNoOneBehind
More from the WHO on the power of Self-Care