Empowering community leadership: how Bogota’s Kennedy locality is strengthening health governance through disability inclusion

In a city facing rapid, unplanned urbanisation and urban density, social and community participation are key. The city of Bogota, Colombia, has embraced the WHO Initiative on urban governance for health and well-being, using it to strengthen a collective health vision in their local government through co-creation practices, social participation, and intersectoral action. The initiative has had a particularly positive impact in the locality of Kennedy, which has the highest percentage of persons with disabilities in the city. The locality focused on improving participatory processes with persons with disabilities and their careers, to determine their needs and priorities. By strengthening the leadership of the members of the Local Disability Council, the locality has seen significant improvements in social participation and has strengthened health governance.

"Health governance demonstrates that if we have a decent healthy environment, and we have good air quality, open spaces, spaces to do sports and culture, we all grow. And of course our health, not only physical but mental, also grows," said Yeimy Carolina Agudelo, local mayor of Kennedy.

One of the carers who has been positively impacted through the initiative is Gloria Estrada, the mother of a person with a disability. She explained: "The Local Disability Council was established to develop policies for people with disabilities. This success story invites us to continue generating all those participatory processes in the community, because they're quite important and they are the ones that actually give successful results to cover the needs of the people."

The initiative began in 2022 with two prioritization workshops, as part of the WHO Urbanlead program, in collaboration with the Kennedy Local Mayor's office. Inclusive strategies were identified to enable persons with disabilities to engage, and training was provided for local leaders.

"It was quite an important training process," said Ms Estrada. "Because, in our role as both leaders and caregivers, what moves us the most is the love and interest that push us into increasing the visibility of our own needs."

Local physician and Disability Council member, Oscar Moreno agreed: "What I liked most was the way they made us understand what we needed to communicate, how we had to look for the needs and the way of knowing what the priorities were in the needs that we had as citizens and as caregivers."

In 2023, more than 10 workshops were held to strengthen capacities in collective health, social participation, and intersectoral action. These workshops also helped narrow down priority areas by community actors: the need to ensure inclusion of adults with disabilities in health and social services. As a result, a proposal was put forward to develop an Interactive Well-being Center for people with disabilities, including their caregivers, and families. Such a center could simultaneously address and improve issues related to health care, mental health and education. A US$1 million budget was allocated to the project, and a full proposal was developed with the technical assistance of WHO.

"The center aims to motivate people, so they continue to strengthen their leadership," said Ms Estrada. "How nice it would be to strengthen this community so that other leaders continue to emerge who can represent the community and support each other."

By taking an equitable and empowering approach to health and well-being in their locality, Kennedy is demonstrating how disability inclusion and participation can strengthen health governance and help communities thrive.

The WHO Initiative on urban governance for health and well-being (2020-2028), supported by the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development, aims at improving the health status and well-being of populations in cities through participatory and multisectoral urban governance. The Initiative is implemented in six core cities: Khulna (Bangladesh), Douala (Cameroon), Bogotá (Colombia), Mexico City (Mexico), Pasig City, Metro Manila (Philippines), and Tunis (Tunisia).

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WHO Initiative on urban governance for health and well-being