Indigena Health and Wellness Collaborative: The Maya Health Promoters Program and the Culturally Rooted Health Interventions They Create and Lead

What started as a cultural promotion and preservation program has grown to become a full-fleshed health and wellness initiative that provides a range of traditional and contemporary healing opportunities to Indigenous immigrants in San Francisco. The Indigena Health and Wellness Collaborative (IHWC) is an effort by three health services agencies serving Native Americans and Indigenous peoples from the Americas. The services that the IHWC provides range from cultural workshops and traditional celebrations and ceremonial activities to case management and mental health consultation. At the core of this project is a team of CHW's and culturally rooted interventions that build on tradition and cultural practices to design interventions and health education programing. We discuss the lessons learned as the program enters into its third year of implementation in terms the effects of cultural preservation activities in the health and wellness of indigenous immigrant communities. Among these lessons we include the power of ceremonial and traditional activities to heal trauma and other mental health problems and the ability that social and cultural gatherings have to break cycles of isolation and create and strengthen networks of support. Interviews with CHW's and traditional healers reveal the powerful effects of tradition and culture to heal and to stay healthy and help us make the case for cultural preservation and reaffirmation activities to be included as part of the regular planning of health departments and CBO's. We also start to look beyond the concept of cultural competency to start searching into culturally rooted interventions.