For many indigenous rural villages, supporting community healthcare providers is a rooted in traditional healthcare systems that have existed for milennia. However, with modernity, communities are losing some of their traditional practices, often becoming dependent on pharmaceuticals and urban hospitals as opposed to traditional medicine. In these environments, due to persistent and brutal racism, indigenous people are not well-attended.
In Zapatista villages, for example –in order to be free of a system that does not care about poor people, or people at all–, the community chooses a volunteer to train to become the local ‘healthcare promoter’. The volunteer uses both traditional knowledge and modern medicine and participates in continuing education in workshops and encuentros at Zapatista-organized regional health centers. The healthcare promoter is based out of a community-built casa de salud (house of health) which is located in the village. Because the she/he is a known member of the community, they are already familiar and trusted by the community and able to provide an invaluable service.
Since the pandemic, communities in resistance look to the Zapatista model of taking back their healthcare and supporting the education of community promoters. As with healthcare practitioners everywhere, ongoing study and practice for emergent conditions and advancements in knowledge is simply a part of the work.
Over these many years, Schools for Chiapas’ work with health promoters has included support and facilitation for educational workshops on herbal medicine, preparations, and nutrition. We have supported autonomous health centers with equipment, supplies, and educational materials as needed.
Currently, the Zapatista communities are involved in internal reorganization and are not open for external collaborations. So, as with all of our work we have begun working with independent communities who are not Zapatista support bases, but who are organized along Zapatista principles. This year we began a collaboration with the Frente Civil Totonalteco on the coast of Chiapas, organizing workshops in herbal medicine and prevention and providing materials which support traditional health practices.
We are excited to be working with these communities!
You can support our work in this area with a Gift of Change!
**We are very sorry if any part of the previous version of this page was misleading and we want to clarify that the funds raised at this time are not going to Zapatista communities, but to support the efforts of indigenous communities inspired by the Zapatista communities to build their own autonomy in health.