Creating Tools for Community Health

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Applying creative solutions to community health problems, this project will engage citizens and policy leaders in creating games, socio-dramas, and other educational materials as part of a new lending library of tools to support good health and well-being.

About This Project

The Inter-ethnic Association of Health Promoters of the Lower Atrato Region (with the Spanish acronym COAPIBAS) is a group of skilled and committed health promoter practitioners. The group is composed of lay-people who have been trained in clinical health skills over the past 8 years through the support of Concern America, a US-based development and refugee aid organization. As a Concern America volunteer, I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with COAPIBAS over the past year, and accompanying them as they attend to their own communities in this remote region of Colombia’s Choco department. As discrimination in resource allocation and a challenging riverine environment leave the region almost completely neglected by the “universal” national health system, communities are developing autonomous health systems to meet their own needs.

In order to improve the health of their communities, however, health promoters cannot rely on clinical medical skills alone. Promoters also act as community organizers and educators, and community members make the commitment to participate in this ongoing process, learning and organizing with their promoters in order to improve community-wide health.

In 2012, COAPIBAS and our Concern America team increased our focus on the organizational and educational aspects of our work. This process has produced educational games, socio-dramas, and problem-posing dialogues in diverse community settings. In 2013, we’ll continue to develop these community organizing tools and educational materials into a resource library. Promoters are learning to use computer technology while creating audio-productions including interviews and scripted public service announcements. They are developing their drawing, fabrication and facilitation skills through the creation and presentation of problem-posing images, socio-dramas and educational games. And in the process we are creating a lending library of durable tools and resources that will remain available to COAPIBAS and their communities on a rotating basis.

Your support will help us grow this lending library of vital resources through a series of participatory workshops with health promoters and community members. We’re aiming to raise $4,000 for materials and supplies, as well as food and transportation for workshops and organizational community visits. Travel in the Choco’s riverine terrain is expensive, so your support will provide the much-needed fuel to make this creative process both participatory and effective!

Learn more about Concern America: www.concernamerica.org

Thank yous

Contribute any amount or choose from the levels below.

• $5
  Special thanks from COAPIBAS ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
• $50
  One Field Report from the Project ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
• $150
  Two Field Reports from the Project (one every three months) ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
• $250
  “Adopt” the Artist Volunteer for One Year and receive four reports covering a year of progress. (Learn more about Concern’s “Adopt a Volunteer” program at: http://www.concernamerica.org/Adopt.html) ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
• $500
  “Adopt” the Artist Volunteer for One Year and receive the original art poster “Gathering Goodness and Harvesting Hope” ($0.00 is tax deductible.)

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Robin Hewlett

Robin Hewlett is an artist and organizer based in Chicago. Hewlett works at the intersection of artistic practice and social justice through her participation in community-based initiatives such as AREA Chicago, Project NIA, Teachers for Social Justice and La Casita …

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