So I showed one of my best friends last night the link to the new PC Guatemala website. His response was something to the effect of "oh, you work in women's health now?" This made me realize that a lot of you probably don't know what I'm doing down here. So, first of all, check out that link.
Second, listen up :). I'm here to help fortify the Ministry of Health from the inside out. We're trying to work together with the existing staff to create better trainings for new staff and to implement better health talks for community members. We're working to create better organization at the community level (Comisiones de Salud) and to get information out to mothers that will help them lead healthier lives. We train midwives to deliver babies more safely and more hygienically.
Which leads me to both the picture above and the youtube video below. The picture is a house in one of my communities. Looks like its on fire. That's how much smoke is coming out of the kitchen. Many women in rural Guatemala still cook on open fires inside the home, exposing themselves and their children to an equivalent amount of carcinogens as about two packs of cigarettes every day. I don't directly work on clean cook stoves (estufas mejoradas) but I have had the opportunity to collaborate a little bit with my site mate who's doing an evaluation of previous projects.
The video below has a lot to say about the importance of family planning in developing countries. You may not agree with what it has to say, but at least watch it. I'll decompress the complexities of family planning here in Guatemala next time if you're interested, but this video has a lot to do with the problems I see every day here--whether poverty from numerous families, maternal death, or machismo seen through denying of the woman's access to birth control.
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