Mexico Trip Report

Late last month, Ground for Health staff, including Executive Director August Burns and Program Manager Kayla Moore, traveled to Chiapas, Mexico with the primary goals of developing a six-month work plan to transition full ownership of the cervical cancer prevention program to co-op partners and secondly, to evaluate the success of the project.

Since beginning work in the region, Grounds for Health has trained 53 local healthcare providers and approximately 100 community health promoters on cervical cancer prevention, screened over 5,000 women, and provided same-day treatment to over 81% of women testing positive during screen-and-treat campaigns in Chiapas.

During this last trip, after various meetings and interviews with co-op leadership and members, we came away with some encouraging findings:

• Our projects have led to increased awareness of cervical cancer among co-op members and a heightened importance of screening
• Co-op leadership now recognizes cervical cancer prevention as an essential service for ensuring the well-being of their members and that it has a positive impact on the financial success of the co-op
• Training of community health promoters contributed to the recognition of women as leaders in a number of communities. After becoming Community Health Promoters, some women were elected as delegates to represent their community’s interest in the co-op.

We also received great feedback that while the program has been far-reaching,  there are still some women who have not accessed services. Reasons include shame, fear of a positive result, their husbands prohibit it, or other cultural beliefs. The co-ops believe other strategies could be employed for outreach in these mostly indigenous communities, such as conducting talks with the men, repeat visits, and one-on-one talks that directly address the woman’s fears. There are also women in very remote areas that have not been reached because of their location.

Grounds for Health and our in-country staff will continue to monitor and evaluate the program to make sure the co-ops can assume complete ownership by a projected Fall 2012 handover. A few of the activities planned for the next six months include:

• Two mini-campaigns in Siltepec, a particularly remote region with a large unscreened population
• Training for additional doctors and nurses to be conducted by newly trained local trainers
• Radio spots and talks with Dra. Lupita to correct misinformation about cervical cancer prevention and treatment
• Additional community health promoter trainings and community outreach and education
• Developing tools to improve and assess the effectiveness of community outreach activities

 

 

 

 

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