Salaam Health and Wellness
An important focus of Salaam Cleveland’s work is in the area of minority and migrant health issues. Minority groups are affected by limited access to health services while migrant groups face multiple health challenges, often over long periods of time. All due to the difficult transition from more traditional lifestyles to a western mode of living.
Salaam Cleveland’s goal is to strive to promote community health and wellness through educational programs designed to encourage healthy eating and increased physical activities amongst the aforementioned groups. It will continue to garner additional support for these on-going efforts.
In 2009 the organization received a grant from the Ohio Commission on Minority Health to participate in Minority Health Month. With the help of this grant, it organized two health fairs aimed at increase awareness about diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular-pulmonary hypertension, diabetes, and substance abuse.
Grants from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for five successive years enabled Salaam Cleveland to partner with ASIA Inc. (Asian Service in Action) to initiate a program to improve community health. Participants were encouraged to adopt lifestyle changes such as eating a wholesome, healthy diet and increasing physical activity by participating in sports and yoga and aerobic exercises.
Another important aspect of community health and wellness that Salaam Cleveland strongly advocates is to bring awareness to the widespread issue of domestic violence. It has arranged numerous seminars in association with ASIA Inc. to educate the community using a grant from the North East Ohio Asian Women’s Leadership Initiative (NALI).
