The Environmental Planning Department of School of Planning and Architecture in partnership with UNICEF organised a day-long workshop on Healthy Cities, here on Wednesday.

The theme of the workshop was to address the risks of public Health in our cities, especially heat waves, water logging, and vector borne diseases. The experts ranged from acamdeciains, urban practitioners, policy executives and medical professionals. Valuable insights about the links between urban spatial planning and public health were disseminated and discussed. 

Speaking at the start Prof Rama Pandey, Associate Professor at SPA shared the objectives of the workshop. Prof Dr Kaliasa Rao, Director spoke on the importance of Ujjain in history as students of SPA are working on climate resilient plans for the selected wards of Ujjain.

Anil Gulati, Communication Specialist, UNICEF spoke on how climate change impacts children and adolescents heath, well being, nutrition, safety and on learning outcomes. He stressed on the need of health planning for disaster as it is an immediate responder in disaster. He thanked SPA for collaboration with UNICEF to develop climate resilient plans for the selected wards of Ujjain.

Students of School of Planning and Architecture presented draft report of the plans they are making spatial climate resilient plans for selected wards of Ujjain to get opinions from experts presented at the workshop.

Dr  Vikas Kishore Desai, Hon. Technical Director Urban Health and Climate Resilient Centre, Surat shared the work done in Surat to address challenges of public health and disaster preparedeness.

Sarbjit Sahota, Emergency Specialist, Disaster Risk Reduction Section, UNICEF India spoke on climate change and how it impacts lives of people. He spoke on child centered disaster risk planning and keeping child in centre when planning for emergency preparedness.

Devika Deshmukh Programme Specialist, Urban, UNICEF Mumbai shared examples of efforts by the State of Maharashtra in Geo spatial planning in urban areas of Mumbai and how it is producing results.

Sandip Sarangi, State Coordinator UN Habitat, Odisha, Devojit Kumar Sarma, Scientist from National Institute for research in Environmental Health, Bhopal  shared the work being done by them on health and climate change. Dr Veena Iyer IIPHG GandhiNagar shared work being done in urban design and public health.

Dr Prashanth Kumar, Health Specialist UNICEF India integrating health in urban planning. Dr N.R, Mandal Head of Department Environmental Planning gave closing remarks. Narendra Singh Chouhan and Sujan Sarkar from UNICEF Madhya Pradesh were also present at the workshop.