About Us
MEHA
Background
The Malawi Environmental Health Association (MEHA) is a registered Trustee with its membership comprising of Environmental Health professionals (entitled as Health Inspectors under Public Health Act, Cap 34.01 of Laws of Malawi). MEHA has an old history in this country dating back to 1980s when it was called the Public Health Inspectors Association of Malawi (PHIAM). Then, its members were Health Inspectors that were trained by University of Malawi-the Polytechnic. Later in 1990s Health Inspectors were called Environmental Health Officers after University of Malawi made a revision of the training curriculum to become broader. This revision triggered the change to the naming of the Association from PHIAM to MEHA on 23rd June, 2009. Currently, The Malawi Polytechnic and the Malawi College of Health Sciences are the ones training Environmental Health Officers in the country.
At an international level, the Association has maintained its international affiliations to International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) and the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland, and other regional EH professional bodies of Uganda . At these international for a, MEHA ranks and is recognised as one of the most organised and recognized Environmental Health Associations in the world by the global EH family owing to the contributions it has made so and its organisation – strong ties with its membership especially with the Environmental Health Assistants (HSAs) who are key in EH profession.
Mandate
MEHA was established to play an oversight role of Environmental Health Practice in Malawi by promoting and advocating for Environmental Health professionalism among its members and increasing access to Environmental Health functions to the general population in Malawi. This comes from background where, as it is the case with other professions such as Nurse and Midwifery, Medical Doctors, Architects, accountants etc, EH was not well regulated, not coordinated, lack a common voice in advocating for environmental health practices and role in contributing of population health and sustainable development goals (SDGs) through addressing critical environmental health challenges.
Mission
Our Mission is to Provide equitable, accessible, competency and evidence-based environment, health, safety, research and surveillance to all the people of Malawi, in line with the policies of the Ministry of Health, Water and Sanitation sector and Social Welfare and the decentralization reforms that:
- Protects public health and the environment
- Employs science based risk analysis and risk management
- Foster technology advancement that benefits the society
Vision
To be a visible, professional, viable and responsive to the needs of Malawians.
Core values
- Equity and fairness
- Quality Environmental health and Services–well managed, culturally sensitive, integrated, available, accessible, accountable, sustainable
- Professional integrity.
Philosophy
- Environmental health education that is of quality and based on developing relevant competencies
- Community need driven services that are evidence based
- Health is a human right issue; safeguarding society lives is and investment
- Environmental health contributes to the economy of the country by impacting on the health outcomes positively
- EH model is tantamount to involvement and participation of communities in health decisions that affect them.
Strategic Objectives
- Develop sustainable approach for Environmental Health professionals and Health Surveillance cadre in community driven and competency-based pre-service and in-service education systems.
- Strengthen Environmental health practice and services
- Strengthen Environmental health professional regulatory bodies systems
- Promote research and evidence–based practice
- Establish communication, advocacy, coordination, collaboration and networking systems with key stakeholders and reporting systems
- Develop capacity of Environmental health professionals and Health Surveillance Assistants cadre in monitoring, evaluation and reporting systems