The Challenge: How can we solve health and environmental equity?

Supported by:

Through the Lead2030 Challenge for SDG 3, AstraZeneca has granted US $50,000 to small, innovative, youth-led non-profit organisations which aim to solve the climate and health challenges facing young people today. In addition to the grant, the winners also receive a fully-funded Scholarship to attend the 2024 One Young World Summit in Montreal, Canada, as well as mentorship by AstraZeneca and inclusion in a development programme through the YHP’s Impact Fellowship.

Applications invited a wide range of ideas, ranging from developing youth climate advocacy capability and health awareness, promoting carbon-friendly solutions to address health equity issues, support climate-health entrepreneurship, targeting food waste and enabling healthy diets, and beyond. 

Health Horizons International Foundation (or better known as HHI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2009, whose mission is to strengthen primary health care in the Dominican Republic. Impacting a universal number of almost 1.8 million people through our combined programs, in conjunction with the country's Ministry of Public Health, we lead efforts towards the education, prevention and integral management of non-communicable diseases like Diabetes and Hypertension from a holistic approach.

The communities we serve face a series of challenges that amplify the gap in access to health: lack of access to quality medical care, gender disparities, structural violence, inaccessibility to housing sustainable resources or primary education, the shortage of public services such as drinking water and sanitation, unemployment, among other determinants of health under a changing profile that increases the burden of chronic diseases in people in socioeconomic vulnerability

For more than a decade, we have strengthened our efforts to close the gap between access to public health as an accessible and affordable right, and communities in precariousness and/or social, economic and political vulnerability in the Dominican Republic. Our work revolves around:

1. Empowerment and development of local capacity with the training of promoters and the strengthening of primary care centers
2. The provision of accessible and affordable quality services with a focus on education, prevention and comprehensive management of NCDs
3. Advocacy to create standards and protocols around better approaches to NCDs at the community level; as well as monitoring public health laws are inclusive and culturally sensitive