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COLOMBIA: INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY HEALTH AGENTS |
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Community health agents revive and promote traditional knowledge
Aída Chindoy, a Kamentzá community health agent who works in her village of the Sibundoy valley in southern Colombia |
The Grupo de Estudios de Sistemas Tradicionales de Salud (Study Group of Traditional Health Systems) from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Rosario, in Bogotá, in collaboration with the Instituto de Etnobiología (Institute of Ethnobiology) from Cota and the Centro de Estudios Médicos Interculturales (Centre for Intercultural Medical Studies, CEMI), has launched an intercultural project called Gestores Comunitarios de Salud (community health agents). This program aims to equip indigenous community leaders with tools for reviving and promoting traditional health knowledge and practices, recovering and preserving ancestral food production technologies, preserving the environment, and promoting community health.
A first cohort of 11 indigenous health agents successfully completed their training in 2005 and returned to work in their communities of the Colombian Amazon and the Vaupés region in southeastern Colombia. CIET supported the evaluation of this project. (A brief 2006 report of the first year’s activities is available from our library.) Another 17 health agents from across the country graduated in early 2007 and are now working in their places of origin.
For an upcoming course, the institutions running the project will adapt the curriculum to the needs of indigenous health promoters working for the Arhuaco-managed health services, also known as Dusakawi EPSI, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in northern Colombia. CIET provides technical support and some funding for a study of the health, cultural, and environmental situation in this region. The results from this study will be the evidence base for the design of this course. Click here for more details on CIET's work with Arahuaco healers and communities.
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