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Background: Health campaigns are an important aspect of preventive health work. The aims of health campaigns can be to improve health literacy in rural areas where residents lack access to health information and knowledge, and to improve both local and global health through cross-cultural collaboration. In Tanga District, Tanzania, exchange students and local youths participate together with Tanga International Competence Center (TICC) to plan and accomplishing health campaigns in local communities.Objective: The objective of this study was to explore participants’ experiences with cross-cultural collaboration in the planning and accomplishing the Health Campaign Program (HCP) at the TICC.Methods: This study used a focused ethnographic approach. Five weeks of fieldwork included four observations of health campaigns and nine interviews: three individual interviews with employees at TICC (all Tanzanians), two group interviews with nine Norwegian nursing students, two group interviews with five local youths enrolled in the TICC’s Youth Program, one interview with a local village leader, and one interview with a local primary school teacher. The interview material was analysed using systematic text condensation.Results: All parties involved, including the residents, achieved learning outcomes from the health campaigns, and the HCP participants perceived the cross-cultural collaboration as successful. Through the HCP, people gained access to health information. Having enough time, adapting to local conditions, and the needs of the target groups were perceived as essential to the campaigns' successful outcome. Music and role-play, which are dominant within Tanzanian culture, created excitement and motivation among the audiences. The interviewees identified changes in people’s health behaviour in the aftermath of the campaigns.Conclusion: Both the local Tanzanian participants and the Norwegian nursing students experienced the cross-cultural collaboration as beneficial. The collaboration helped to strengthen the quality of the health campaigns and increased the residents’ learning outcomes in attending the performance of the health campaigns. |
