A colourful grand finale for the 'Take it to Heart' Rheumatic Fever Awareness Campaign

On Saturday 24th November, Alliance Health Plus Trust hosted a combined rheumatic fever awareness, education and prevention grand finale event at the Otahuhu Recreation Centre. The event was the last one in the rheumatic fever campaign which has been running since July 18, thanks to funding from the Ministry of Health. The campaign has focussed on engagement with 18 established Pacific churches and community groups, and has involved working with six Pacific nations represented by groups from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu, from across the whole of Metro Auckland.

The Otahuhu Recreation Centre was a riot of colour as groups from the community representing the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga, took part with passion and pride. These groups delivered performance based health promotion via song, drama and comedy to an audience of more than 150 people. Their messaging revolved around the key rheumatic fever messages:

• A sore throat can lead to rheumatic fever if left untreated

• If your child has a sore throat, take them to the GP

• If someone in your family has already had rheumatic fever, it's important to get anyone else's sore throat checked

• Don't ignore it! Call healthline on 0800 611 116 to find out more

• If your child is given antibiotics, it is important that they take them for the whole 10 days to stop them getting rheumatic fever

Engagement has been fantastic with 2,500+ participants taking part in the overall campaign, alongside a social media campaign on the Alliance Health Plus ‘Mama’s House’ facebook page - the online presence AH+ has established to share critical health information with the Pasifika community. To date, video and pictorial information has reached 200,000+ people, and has been viewed 100,000+ times over the campaign. Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/mamashouseAH/ as we share more content from the campaign over the next few months.