Development Issues: Women, Health, Rights, Economic Development, Environment, Youth

Programme Summary

This community-based organisation is devoted to promoting the empowerment and gender equality of women in the Peruvian Amazon Native Indian communities. Its mission is to assist these communities in their fight against social, economic, and environmental injustice. It is in large part the work of indigenous health care researcher, activist and Ashoka Fellow, Eliana Elias.

Many poor people in the developing world die needlessly during epidemics and medical emergencies because they do not understand how to apply the measures that could prevent or cure their afflictions. Elias has identified a need which is fundamental but often overlooked in development programs--communications strategies and techniques for use with poor indigenous groups, and poor women in particular, to make sure that information gets adequately transmitted to beneficiary populations and achieves the desired impact. Existing educational materials tend to use terminology that the people do not understand. Because national health materials and policies are designed in Lima, they do not take into consideration cultural beliefs, perceptions, and traditions of local indigenous groups, many of which are isolated throughout the country. Policies and health campaigns, instead, are designed by personnel with biomedical backgrounds and without any formation in effective communication or education. These policies focus on curative medicine rather than primary health care, disease prevention, and community participation.

Summary of ICT Initiatives

Together with community leaders, health workers, and traditional healers, APRI-Minga produces radio programmes, training material, and workshops on human rights, income generation, self-esteem, family violence, health prevention, reproductive health, and traditional medicine. For instance, APRI-Minga works with a network of women and girls known as promoters who are volunteers from the communities themselves. The promoters are trained in developing consensus-building strategies, resource mobilization, and broadening communication channels among different generations. After training, these promoters encourage active participation in decision-making regarding health, fertility, and social well-being

Minga has identified four strategic points of intervention for improving the provision of public health information: upper echelons of the Ministry of Health and national policymakers, educators and trainers in medical and nursing schools, health care providers (both official and traditional) in rural areas, and the population itself. Minga has designed a series of initiatives for education and influencing policy with each of these groups, with a view to revolutionizing the dissemination of public health information by teaching them how to communicate in language and concepts that are accessible to the target population.

Minga's primary goal is to ensure that local rural communities are well informed, understand health materials, and ultimately achieve a healthy lifestyle through positive attitudes and clear knowledge of health practices. They have created packets of materials in the people's own language, including radio programs, brochures, videos, and manuals, translating technical explanations into easily comprehensible terms. Topics include safe sex and pregnancy, avoiding cholera, community efforts in disease prevention, women's and children's health, prevention of contagious disease, and communication for health.Specific Minga projects include:

• “Welcome Health”: an educational programme that reaches an audience of 800,000 in the Amazons
• Health Education: trains and assesses native Indian health promoters and encourages their leadership in communities.
• Paternity: involves men in the reproductive health decision-making process.
• Resource Management: initiates farming, reforestation, and fishing projects to disseminate sustainable agricultural practices.
• Tambo Minga: a community training centre for the project partners

The radio program called "Welcome Health" transmits information on health to local populations and has to date broadcast 50 programs. Listeners, mostly women and health care providers, write in about improvements in health conditions and participate in contests for prizes such as mosquito nets, cooking utensils, and other equipment to prevent community health problems. She has received funding to continue radio transmissions for three years.

The next level, involves working with health centres, local health organizations, and universities to train health care personnel in effective communication techniques. It is necessary to identify health professionals in rural areas who were born locally and will stay longer than a year for intensive training in design and promulgation of materials. Universities are collaborating to future health care providers in social communications techniques and groups of students from Lima are forming to do practical exercises in health care communication in coordination with rural populations.

It is also necessary to influence decision-makers to affect national policy and incorporate effective communication strategies into official materials on health care. At the local level, Minga collaborates with the Loreto Regional Health Directorate to promote community participation and communications in health. Through links with international organizations such as USAID, World Bank, Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications, and the Center for Health and Gender Equity, Minga hopes to bring pressure on Peru's Health Ministry to change its policies and incorporate effective communication strategies into their health campaigns.

Partners: Family Care International, Red de Mujeres Amazónicas del Marañon (Marañon Amazon Women's Network), Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice, McGile University, Ashoka.

Source: The Minga Perú site and the profile on Elias at the Ashoka site.

For More Information Contact:

Victoriano Castillo

Minga Perú

125 Of.102

Urbanización Los Jasmines, Miraflores

Lima 18 - Perú

Tel.-Fax: 511-448-2970

mingaperu@chavin.rcp.net.pe

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