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ABOUT THE COMMUNITY HEALTH BRIGADE 43

The Community Health Brigade 43 (Brigada de Salud Comunitaria 43) is a health Project whose main objective is to construct holistic health in the communities it Works with through horizontal, autonomous and not for profit work. One of our guiding principles is respect for and a focus on strengthening the knowledge of and practice of traditional medicine in the region we work in.

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Despite a tremendously rich and diverse natural environment, the region of Tixtla in the state of Guerrero, Mexico where the Brigada does most of its work, is one of the most marginalized in the country. In 2010, according to official statistics, 71.2% of the population of Tixtla (which includes the municipality and rural communities belonging to the urban center) was categorized as living in poverty and more than 40% of the population had no access to health care services.

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Besides the tremendous social and economic marginalization, the region has been marked by devastating violence for decades now at the hands of landowners, state institutions, military and police forces and organized crime.

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It was in this context that the events of September 26th 2014 happened. At the hands of municipal police in collusion with organized crime, the military and all three levels of government, 43 students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College (located right outside the municipality of Tixtla) were picked up in the municipality of Iguala and forcibly disappeared.

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The Brigada, in solidarity with the families of the 43 disappeared students, of the 3 students assassinated that night, the one critically injured and all the current students of Ayotzinapa, took on the “43” as part of its name to always have them present in our construction of health and community as well as in recognition of their courage and dignity in a situation of such tremendous adversity and repression.

WHAT WE BELIEVE AND
WORK ON

We understand health as a fundamental right and an integral part of a dignified life. As such, all individuals and communities should enjoy a maximum level of health and well-being independent of their color, ethnicity, gender, age, class, religious beliefs, abilities or sexual orientation. We also base our work in an understanding of the determinants of health which include the political context, social and economic inequality, gender violence, sexual discrimination, political repression (including repression by the military and police) and exploitation of nature, among others. Therefore, any serious work around health needs to contemplate these roots of illness and look to create changes in the very conditions that foment it; guaranteeing health includes ensuring access to clean and potable water, adequate living conditions, healthy nutrition, a healthy environment, favorable work conditions, access to education and information about health. Ensuring this holistic state of health and well-being is a collective responsibility and as such, all decisions made about health should be participative and horizontal.

We believe that community health not only refers to building health in a community. Rather, it is based upon the principle that by building community life, horizontal organization and living, sharing knowledge and skills, resources and life, we heal ourselves in an inter-dependent manner. That is – collectively.

The right to health not only includes the right to be healthy. It also includes the right to freedom around making decisions about one’s body and the freedom to resist attacks against it. For example, the right to resist torture, exploitation, and non-consensual medical treatments and experiments.

At the moment, the work of the Brigada includes the following areas:

1)     Training local community members to prevent, diagnose and treat the most common and basic illnesses in their communities.

2)     Health brigades during which we provide free consults and cultural activities.

3)     Preventive education and infrastructure.

Elaboration and distribution of traditional/natural treatments as well as allopathic medication.
 

DECLARATION OF COMMUNITY HEALTH RIGHTS

We are those who remain forgotten by the Constitution and the governments that come and go, whatever the colors of their party. We are the Mexicans who are invisible - migrants, Indigenous, residents of the most marginalized communities and city neighbourhoods. We’re the poor who continue to get sick and die of preventable diseases, of violence and all kinds of abuse. Ours are the bodies, the minds, the hearts and the lives that the powerful consider disposable. In the eyes of the government, our territories and communities are poor but these conditions of impoverishment haven’t come to us by chance or due to destiny. Our communities aren’t poor; we’ve been made poor amidst our own riches. We know that as communities we are also forest, water, earth, rocks, metals, medicinal plants, vegetables, fruits and animals. We are people who work hard, people who continue to hold the centuries old wisdom of our ancestors in the countryside, the mountains and the oceans. We are those who suffered but survived the Dirty War, massacres, forced disappearance, unjust imprisonment, detentions and a long list of violations as a result of defending dignified lives. Our communities aren’t poor yet we’ve been impoverished in order to make the business elite and the politicians working with organized crime rich. Those at the top of this system have imposed hunger and insecurity upon us – the worst illnesses - in order to paralyze and thus eliminate us. For this reason we say that we are no longer willing to allow others to decide how we will live and die or which of us have the right to live and which ones don’t. Health is a right which shouldn’t be begged for. The survival and happiness of our communities is a right that only our communities can defend. We shouldn’t have to pray for health to one day arrive to our people. We shouldn’t have to wait in eternal lines to receive attention or have to pay for adequate equipment and medication; we shouldn’t have to give up our family savings or sell our land to take care of those we love. No one in our community should have to lose a daughter or a son to a treatable illness, no one should have to look for a disappeared daughter or cry for a tortured or assassinated son. Enough! Good health is a right, and not a privilege, of each one of us and our communities.

  1. We have the right to live free of all types of violence and abuse, with justice and security.

  2. We have the right to not get sick with or die of preventable illnesses.

  3. We have the right to decide for our own bodies.

  4. We have the right to an environment free of contamination and a territory that respects all forms of life.

  5. We have the right to produce and consume healthy food.

  6. We have the right to use and learn the traditional ways of healing of our people.

  7. We have the right to rest and to be happy.

  8. We have the right to work that doesn’t damage our bodies and minds.

  9. We have the right free, high quality and integral health care, free of discrimination.

  10. We have the right to learn how to protect our own health, that of our families and communities.

  11. We have the right to know our history and feel proud of who we are.

  12. We have the right to not be discriminated against for our age, gender, ethnicity, color, beliefs, language, gender, sexual preference, abilities or social class.

  13. We have the right to organize ourselves and participate in the decisions that affect our lives and the life of our community.

  14. We have the right to not be displaced from our territories, to migrate if necessary and to come back freely.

  15. We have the right to share what we know and have with other individuals and communities.

 

BRIGADA DE SALUD COMUNITARIA 43

(COMMUNITY HEALTH BRIGADA 43)

TIXTLA, GUERRERO, MÉXICO

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