DHA, Unilever to raise health awareness

Dubai / Emirates Business

The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and Unilever signed an agreement to promote healthy lifestyle through a yearlong campaign comprising of several awareness initiatives and outreach programs for Dubai residents.
The MoU was signed at the DHA headquarters by His Excellency Humaid Al Qatami, Chairman of the Board and Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority(DHA) and Waqas Javed, Marketing Director Foods, Refreshments & Home Care – Unilever Gulf.
One of the major initiatives of the MoU is to raise awareness about healthy eating, hydration and daily physical exercise among adolescents in Dubai. The initiative is designed to target hundreds of students between the ages of 13 and 17, across 30 schools in Dubai.
The other initiatives include installing stationary bikes across all waiting areas of Dubai Health Authority health facilities and at a later stage collaborating with other governmental authorities to install these bikes across the city’s public spaces – including parks – to encourage exercise.
“The partnership reinforces the DHA’s commitment to promote health awareness and prevent disease prevalence by reaching out to the community and educating them. The DHA has a number of school health programs and we are glad to launch another health education program that particularly targets adolescents in the Emirate. We believe that forming good habits at a younger age is more effective than addressing issues later on. We consider the private sector to be our partner and thus through such agreements the aim is to reach out to different sections of society to educate them on how to lead a healthy lifestyle,” said Al Qatami.
As part of the MoU, Unilever will also support the DHA’s annual Anges Akhtar( Do More) initiative, which is a health awareness initiative that takes place annually across major parks and jogging tracks in the Emirate. The aim of the Anges Akhtar campaign is to educate the public on the right foods to eat before and after exercise; the importance of hydration and how to avoid sports related injuries. So far, the Authority has distributed 30,000 health educational brochures as part of this campaign.
“Unilever is proud to promote well-being, health and quality of life. We’ve designed initiatives in association with the DHA to increase activity and encourage good eating and drinking habits,” said Waqas Javed, Marketing Director Foods, Refreshments & Home Care – Unilever Gulf.

“Our aim is to raise awareness of the importance of staying active throughout the day. Regular exercise coupled with healthy eating is known to better health, reduce stress, rectify bad posture and stiffness, and also combat a host of lifestyle diseases- which have become a global health challenge. Such initiatives help address this challenge by empowering people to make the right healthy choices.”