Health Design Lab

The final Health Access Philly conversation closed out at Bartram’s Garden last week, with Maitreyi Roy on how community can serve as health infrastructure. 🌱

There are 3 things we are carrying into the work ahead:

1. Green space is public health infrastructure.
Green space belongs in the same category as clean water, reliable transit, and working streetlights. Not an amenity, not a luxury, not a perk for the neighborhoods that can fund it. Infrastructure.

2. Sankofa Community Farm is helping people build a new relationship with healthy food and land.
Sankofa Community Farm grows about 15,000 pounds of food a year for the surrounding neighborhood and just launched Pennsylvania’s first City Farmer Apprentice program.

3. Trust is built slowly, and it is never finished.
Maitreyi drew a sharp line between outreach and engagement. Outreach is telling people you exist. Engagement is building a relationship, and that work, in her words, is ongoing.

Next: the JeffSolves Summer Sprint Challenge kicks off June 16. 🚀
Five weeks, hybrid format. Teams will design and build tools that help eligible Pennsylvanians keep their health and food benefits as HR-1 takes effect. No experience required. Individuals are welcome and will be matched into teams at kickoff.

Details and interest form at healthaccessphilly.com