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What's New at HealthWrights

NEW! Three new CBR Slide Shows on CD/DVD! In 2005, David Werner visited India where he conducted Community Based Rehabilitation workshops in three regions. These workshops provided material for three new extensive slide shows, each narrated, detailing the interactive process of the workshop participants, the disabled individuals, and their families. These heartwarming, yet pragmatic stories show how, by working together and putting the disabled person at the center of the process, assistive devices can be tailor made to better fit his or her needs. Order the CD or DVD.

NEW! The Double Hand Rim Wheelchair: A mobility-aid for people with hemiplegia (half-body paralysis) in developing countries, by J.A. van Alphen and D.R. Arbib. This manual was made for workers of a whirlwind type wheelchair workshop, wishing to make a foldable wheelchair specific for a hemiplegic user. (This PDF document is 10 MB.)

Nuevo! ¡Boletínes de la Sierra Madre por Internet! (Newsletters in Spanish online!) We are putting our Newsletters from the Sierra Madre in Spanish online.

NEW! Books online! All of David Werner's books are now available online in both English and Spanish.

NEWLY RE-RELEASED! Politics of Health Knowledge Network www.politicsofhealth.org

I'm Hungry. Stop Talking Politics.

Work continues daily on our exciting new web site: the 'Politics of Health Knowledge Network' This user-friendly information-sharing tool is designed to help concerned people better understand and actively respond to the most urgent health-related issues confronting humanity. In addition to solid facts and well analyzed data, the site will provide examples of healthier, more equitable, more sustainable alternatives.

The Politics of Health Knowledge Network is being continually updated. New to the site are interactive forums and many new graphics and images that bring the site to life. In addition, we have added a public area where anyone may contribute relevant articles. We invite your participation.

HELP NEEDED! To make this Knowledge Network a more effective tool for change, we need input and assistance from from contributors and volunteers from around the world in a wide range of sectors. To learn about how you can submit content on specific themes, or help in other ways, go to the new site: www.politicsofhealth.org.

New at PROJIMO

PROJIMO's Own Web Site
PROJIMO has launched its new web site! Both Spanish and English versions are up and running.

PROJIMO Media

NEW! Article by a physical therapist/Spanish Student describing her recent experience at PROJIMO.

NEW! Viviendo de Nuevo con Daño Medular -- Return to Life After Spinal Cord Injury. This new educational CD Movie (Spanish with English subtitles) is produced by PROJIMO, filmed and edited by Peter Bauer. Now downloadable at: http://www.pwdocs.com/spinal_quicktime.htm

NEW! A slide show on the PROJIMO Children's Wheelchair Making Program in Duranguito, Sinaloa, Mexico, now on this site. Lots on innovative low-cost custom-made designs for children with a wide variety of wheelchairs made by a team of disabled villagers.

An extensive slide show on PROJIMO Community Rehabilitation Program in Mexico, now on this site.

 

Conversational Spanish Training at PROJIMO

We have a unique Intensive Conversational Spanish Training Program at the PROJIMO Rehabilitation Program in Rural Mexico. A chance to volunteer and study Spanish at the same time!

For Instructions on How to Get to PROJIMO, in western Mexico, click here.

New story highlighting how the Barr Foundation, along with representatives from Sierra Orthopedic Laboratory, and Becker Orthopedic Appliance Co visited PROJIMO recently to assist in continuing to provide limbs and braces to those in need.

Papers by David Werner

NEW! UPDATE ON THE POLITICS OF HEALTH IN MEXICO'S SIERRA MADRE, brief paper by David Werner for a booklet by the International People's Health Council, November, 2002

NEW ON THIS SITE: Primary Health Care and the Temptation of Excellence From Newsletter from the Sierra Madre # 10, April, 1975. This includes several reflections and short stories emphasizing the human side of Primary Health Care, setting the philosophical and existential framework for the following story: "What we learned from Maria."

NEW ON THIS SITE: WHAT WE LEARNED FROM MARIA ...Originally printed in "Newsletter from the Sierra Madre" # 10, April, 1975, this article has become one of the classics of health care literature. The story tells the events leading up to the tragic death of a distressed village woman in Mexico. It shows the importance of cultural sensitivity and of taking the concerns of the ailing person seriously. This tragedy helped a lot of us involved with Project Piaxtla in Mexico to rethink our approach to primary health care, and to become better health workers and more humble and compassionate human beings.

NEW ON THIS SITE: PUSHING DRUGS IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY: What the pharmaceutical, tobacco, and narcotics trade have in common Keynote address for American Medical Students Association's 43rd Annual Convention: "A Prescription for Action: Use, Misuse & Abuse of Drugs" Miami, Florida, March 25-28, 1993.

NEW ON THIS SITE: EMPOWERMENT AND HEALTH. Talk given by David Werner
Christian Medical Commission/CCPD Joint Commission Meeting, Manila, Philippines 12-19 January 1988

NEW ON THIS SITE: PUBLIC HEALTH, POVERTY, AND EMPOWERMENT--A CHALLENGE, Convocation Address by David Werner. John Hopkins School of Public Health, l985

INSURING THE NECESSARY RESOURCES FOR THE HUMAN RIGHT TO HEALTH: National and International Measures, Address by David Werner for the Global Assembly on "Advancing the Human Right to Health," Iowa City, Iowa, April 20-22, 2001.

For other recent papers and addresses see the David Werner Papers page.

 

Arts &Crafts

Healthwrights is now offering for sale various Arts and Crafts products made at PROJIMO. Many these items were made by village children, both disabled and non-disabled, and all sales go toward funding of disability programs in Mexico.

 

Newsletter From the Sierra Madre

New! Newsletter #59, October 2007.For three weeks in February and March 2007 David Werner visited South Africa at the invitation of the Western Cape Association for Persons with Disability (WC-APD). During his 3-week visit he facilitated a series of seminars and workshops on Community Based Rehabilitation, first in the city of Cape Town, then in outlying areas in the Western Cape Province. David had an opportunity to visit the homes of some of the people with disabilities assisted by APD, and witnessed the grinding poverty and powerlessness that still oppress the majority of South Africans, despite the celebrated liberation from the apartheid regime that was achieved, by the democratic elections in 1994. In this issue David describes the continuing socioeconomic polarization in South Africa, and the challenges it creates for those striving for rights and opportunities of people with disabilities.

New! Newsletter #58, April 2007. In this issue we look at an effort by the state of Michoacan, Mexico, and the Teachers Union to achieve educational reform, which has triggered a heated debate about whether or not to include disabled children in regular schools. Meanwhile, a Community Based Rehabilitation program near Patzcuaro is quietly integrating children into village schools. Next we visit a remarkable “Museo de la Basura” (Museum of Garbage) in Morelia, where an innovative school teacher makes educational toys and ingenious teaching aids by recycling refuse. We also get our first glimpse of Jason Weston’s forthcoming book, Choosing our Future.

New! Newsletter #57, December 2006. This issue presents the text of an address given by David Werner to the New York State Occupational Therapy Association. This year’s NYSOTA Conference was especially important because it was led by a group of socially progressive therapists who challenge their peers to go beyond the conventional focus on disabled individuals and answer in a holistic way to needs of all who are marginalized in a globalized paradigm of “occupational apartheid.”

We also provide a brief update on the two PROJIMO community-based programs in Mexico, and look at the way they have evolved over the last 25 years. We then explore the implications of the Military Commissions Act and how it might serve as an opportunity for change. Finally we extend our readers a Season’s Greeting—and thank you for your continued support.

New! Newsletter #56, April 2006. In this newsletter we look at a Community Based Rehabilitation initiative in Honduras. We explore the underlying causes of disability, worsening poverty, environmental demise, and social upheaval that can be traced to the war of the “Contras” in Nicaragua in the 1980s. We also look at the plight of impoverished Hondurans who left their country in search of jobs in the south-eastern USA, only to be caught in the nightmare of Hurricane Katrina.

New! Newsletter #55, December 2005. In this newsletter we travel to India, where David Werner facilitated 3 hands-on workshops in Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) and assistive technology for mediators of Liliane Fonds. Strengths and weaknesses of different models of CBR are discussed, as observed in the collaborating programs. Examples are given of how innovative low-cost assistive devices can be developed by working together with the disabled young people and their families.

 

Back issues of the Newsletter are being added to this site. Already, Newsletters 32 through the current issue are available, as are issues 1-14. Also, the original four Reports from the Sierra Madre, which preceded the Newsletters, are now online. We are working to post the rest of the Newsletters soon. To see them go to Newsletters.


Books and Translations

Online Books

NEW! The following books by David Werner are now available for viewing and downloading, in both English and Spanish, at no cost:

- Where There is No Doctor
-Donde No Hay Doctor

- Helping Health Workers Learn
-Aprendiendo a Promover la Salud

- Disabled Village Children
-El Niño Campesino Deshabilitado

- Questioning the Solution
-Cuestionando la Solución

- Nothing About Us Without Us
-Nada Sobre Nosotros Sin Nosotros

 

 


last updated: November, 2007