SWOP’s mission is to improve the health of all sex workers in NSW through innovative, holistic and effective approaches to sexual health, and to improve the protection of our human rights.

Ottowa Charter

Health Promotion

Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.

To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, an individual or group must be able to identify and to realise aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment.

Health is, therefore, seen as a resource for everyday life, not the objective  of living. Health is a positive concept emphasising social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector, but goes beyond healthy lifestyles to wellbeing.

Prerequisites for Health

The fundamental conditions and resources for health are:

• Peace

• Shelter

• Education

• Food

• Income

• A stable eco-system

• Sustainable resources

• Social justice

• Equity

Improvement in health requires a secure foundation in these basic prerequisites.

Advocacy

Good health is a major resource for social, economic and personal development and an important dimension of quality of life.

Political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioural and biological factors can all favour health or be harmful to it. Health promotion action aims at making these conditions favourable through advocacy for health.