Protection against priority diseases for women, girls and children in excluded populations

What is the project about?

The main objective of this project, which was developed in three intermittent phases, was to carry out actions to improve the health care of the population living in the communities of Rio Abajo and Carretera in the suburban area of Mitú through the strengthening of local capacities and the development of inputs for the construction of a model based on Primary Health Care (PHC) with a differential approach.

What did we do?

We trained 65 nursing assistants and health promoters throughout the department.

We set up 5 health care posts adapted by the communities themselves and equipped by the project with the hiring of 5 nursing assistants chosen by the communities and trained by Sinergias.

We accompanied these community health agents with a team of health and social professionals (physician, epidemiologist, anthropologist and community health specialist), in order to strengthen their technical capacities to provide maternal and child health services.

We conducted periodic home visits to all 340 families in the area, characterizing risk factors and generating family improvement plans.

We conducted a diagnosis of the nutritional situation of children under five years of age with deworming and micronutrient supplementation for all infants in the area.

We developed participatory workshops on key health practices.

We recruited and referred pregnant mothers for medical attention at the local hospital.

We collected information for the characterization of suicidal behavior in indigenous populations with retrospective epidemiological analysis of the suicide event in the department of Vaupés between 2008-2011.

All these actions generated inputs for the construction of a health care model appropriate to the needs of the ethnic population of Vaupés.