Africa faces significant challenges educating the next generation in the context of health. Strong political action, broad participation and sustained advocacy are required to capitalize on the proven potential of novel initiatives now available to disseminate 'knowledge' and 'healthy practices'. These include the WHO Health Promoting School (HPS) model, however no literature reporting evaluations of HPS from Africa existed as recently as 10 years ago. In 2011 40 people from 5 continents came together to share their global and regional experience surrounding the WHO HPS model at the Stellenbos.