Help make prevention a priority

Last month, Illawarra Women in Business hosted its annual awards evening. One of the award winners was Healthy Cities Illawarra, a non-profit organisation that works to create healthy environments and enable healthy choices for the people of the Illawarra and Shoalhaven.

Kelly Andrews, CEO of Healthy Cities Illawarra, tells us what winning Highly Commended Award in the Outstanding Charity category means to her and the organisation.

How did it feel to win the Highly Commended Award in the 2023 Illawarra Women in Business Awards Outstanding Charity category?

It felt a little bit strange because we do not usually move in ‘business’ circles, so it was a different audience for us. It was a great initiative of IWIB to introduce this category because charitable organisations still have legal, financial, administrative, marketing and business aspects to ensure running the organisation is successful. Overall, it felt very satisfying, especially since not every category had a Highly Commended.

Why was the recognition so important for Healthy Cities Illawarra?

We are in a health crisis at the moment, everyone knows that. Our acute, hospital sector is not coping with demand, we have a ridiculous shortage of GPs, front-line health workers are stressed and under more pressure than ever before, and if we keep doing things the same way, we (modern society), will keep getting sicker, and the problems will worsen.

So, raising awareness of the work of Healthy Cities Illawarra is important because we need to talk about – and value – and take action on things that keep people healthy outside of the ‘health’ system.

Valuing health and wellbeing over sickness and treatment needs to be elevated on the political and social agenda of all levels of governments and across all sectors. There is so much that we can do to prevent suffering and ill-health, rather than always trying to fix things when it is too late.

Why do you think public perception of prevention isn't as important as treatment amongst charities?

Firstly, there are not many charities around that focus on prevention, so public perception can be forgiven for being ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

Secondly, it is more compelling, emotional and urgent to treat disease. We all want that, there is no argument that people who are vulnerable and unwell deserve treatment and care. I think people agree that prevention IS important, but when the work is less obvious or tangible, and you do not necessarily see the fruits of that work until decades later, it is almost impossible to preference investing in that when there are so many people that need immediate attention first!  And voilà! A vicious cycle.

What are the biggest challenges facing Healthy Cities Illawarra?

Short sightedness and lack of funding.

We live in a 24-hour media cycle and a three-year political cycle where crises and ‘things that need fixing’ reign. Whilst important, it’s short sighted – and expensive.

It’s especially frustrating, no, demoralising, when you know that things can be prevented and that it would save the health system billions in the long run.

Look at the bushfires – it takes an unspeakable disaster to put preventative and sustainable land management back on the agenda. Why? Not having long-term vision is a big threat to human (and environmental) health and is one of our biggest challenges – more than 80% of an individual’s health is caused by factors outside of health care.

Chronic disease makes up 85% of the burden of disease, contributes to 9 in 10 deaths and costs more than $70 billion annually – yet these can be prevented.

Healthy Cities Illawarra has insufficient core funding, which makes us heavily reliant on community grants.  These grants are highly competitive, short-term, small to modest amounts of money, and do not fund program delivery or other initiatives on an ongoing basis.

What can the Illawarra community do to help support Healthy Cities Illawarra programs?

1. Write to your local Members of Parliament, State and Federal, in support of our work and in support of our requests for urgent investment in our organisation. We are the only regional health promotion organisation in Australia, an important asset for environmental, health and wellbeing advocacy, community resilience and prevention of chronic disease.
2. Sign up to our newsletter, follow us on social media, like and share our posts.
3. Donate. 100% of funds stay in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven and all donations are tax deductible.