Health as Autonomy: With the community in Chiapas and in Oaxaca

DGH has been working in Chiapas since 1998.  We send volunteers to a small rural hospital, Hospital San Carlos, and accompany health promoters in autonomous communities that are supporters of the Zapatista movement.  In Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, we work with a partner organization, Rural Communities in Cooperation, that represents farmers in more than 25 communities.  DGH volunteers provide training for health promoters. The approach and philosophy of CCC is to serve communities through health promoter training and sharing of cultural knowledge, to address not only specific disease states, but also the individual, social, and economic factors that affect health.  In all of our work we strive to promote true community-oriented primary care.