GLOBAL ILLS AND POPULAR STRUGGLES IN ECUADOR
In September, 2000 David Werner
visited Ecuador to help facilitate two very different
activities. One was a three day Regional Forum
for the Health of the People, held in Cuenca and
organized by Dr. Arturo Quizhpe and the Faculty
of Medical Sciences at the University of Cuenca.
The other was a six day Regional Training Course
in Community Based Rehabilitation, held in Quito
and organized by Christoffel-Blindenmission (CBM).
The Cuenca Forum
The “Foro Regional POR LA SALUD
POPULAR” (Regional Forum for Health of the People)--held
in Cuenca, Sept. 26-28, 2000--was a preparatory
event to encourage grassroots involvement in the
People's Health Assembly (PHA), which promises
to be a groundbreaking world-wide event to take
place in Bangladesh, December 4-8, 2000. Similar
regional fora in preparation for the PHA are taking
place in Central America, Asia, Africa, Canada
and Europe.
The Cuenca Forum was attended by
over 500 activists and health workers from diverse
programs, popular movements, and NGOs (non-government
organizations) and various marginalized groups.
The Forum was co-sponsored by the
Cuenca Faculty of Medical Sciences, the Cuenca
School of Public Health, Plan International, Doctors
for Renovation, Society for Family and Community
Health, Action Aid, Cuenca Child-to-Child Center,
Nursing College of Azuay, and other organizations
and NGOs. 
A key objective of the People’s
Health Assembly will be to give a voice to unheard
and marginalized groups in the decisions that
shape their health and lives. To this end,
the Cuenca Forum welcomed health workers and spokespersons
representing a spectrum of disadvantaged and indigenous
groups from the central highlands to the coastal
tropics to the Amazon headwaters. Speakers included
shamans (medicine men) from the Shuar and Achuar
tribes in the eastern jungles, activists working
for the rights of women migrating illegally to
the United States, community health promoters
from underprivileged urban and rural settlements,
and activists defending the rain forests and their
inhabitants from the onslaught of multinational
oil companies.
