“You Are In Movement! You Are Positive!”

For the past several years, the Public Health and Reforms Center of the Ministry of Health of the Azerbaijan Republic (PHRC) in cooperation with different governmental agencies has been organizing various events with respect to promoting sport and health among the population.   The most popular among these is the the Youth Health Festival .

This year, the  Youth Health Festival  was held in the park named after Heydar Aliyev in Khatai district of Baku together with Public Health and Reforms Center staff. The event’s slogan was “You are in movement! You are positive!” and  was jointly organized by the  Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Azerbaijan Republic, Khatai District Executive Power, PHRC and “Sport for Development” Public Union. 

During the festival, different sport pavillions throughout the park featured exemplary performances. The coaches and trainers operating in the various pavillions invited the families and the children in attendance to be involved in the performances accompanied by music.

Intigam Babayev, Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Fuad Muradov, member of Milli Majlis (parlament), Jala Abdiyeva, Deputy head of Khatai District Executive Power spoke of  the importance of the Health Festival, and its objective of promoting a healthy lifestyle and physical activity among the youth, especially students. Officials also mentioned that having people with disabilities take part in the activities along with people without disabilities  is an important part of inclusive education.

Subsequently,  the students of 5 secondary schools who were the winners in competitions held in their schools of the Khatai district took part in several competitions related to physical activity, in cheerful, safe, inclusive relays and in other contests at the cultural and public event. People with disabilities were also among the participants.

Football, basketball, acrobatics, track and field athletics and boxing were presented during the event. At the end of the day, all  participants in the competitions were awarded with certificates, trophies, and medals.

The festival aims to promote healthy life style among the population, to inform the public about the benefits of physical activity in accordance with the “Strategy for combating non-infectious diseases in the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2015-2020”. Today, young people live a more sedentary lifestyle like adults in some countries of the world icluding Azerbaijan which affects the development of a number of non-infectious diseases. Sedentary life style generates wide spread depression in the world by creating physical passivity .  World Health Day 2017 declared  by the World Health Organization was devoted to the subject of depression. Holding the “Youth Health Festival” is  very important in terms of promoting the beenfits of  physical activity which is one of the most effective  ways of preventing depression.  

Informative materials prepared by the Centre for Public Health and Reforms were distributed for advising the population on physical activity within the framework of the Health Festival.