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What's New
at HealthWrights
NEW!
Health in Harmony:
A Program in Borneo that Links Community and
Environmental Health a new booklet by David
Werner. Health in Harmony is an innovative new program on
the island of Borneo. This pioneering program is crucially
relevant to our imperiled times because it strives to address
both the pressing health needs of the local villagers and
the environmental protection of endangered tropical forests.
In a holistic manner, it combines community-based health care
with the overarching issues of deforestation, global warming,
and the conservation of the intricate balance of life.
NEW!
Wondrous Toy
Workshop: Hanni's Inspiring Life and Her Toys
That Anyone Can Make, a new book by
Nancy B. Miller, with a forward by David Werner. The Wondrous
Toy Workshop is a practical how-to-do-it book about making
toys. It is also an inspiring story about helping disadvantaged
children build worthwhile lives for themselves, realize their
creative potential, and gain self-esteem.
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.)
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
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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
#61, in November 2007 I (David
Werner) had the opportunity to visit Health in Harmony,
an innovative new program in a r remote area of West Kalimantan,
on the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. This
pioneering program is crucially relevant to our imperiled
times because it strives to address, in an integrated participatory
way: 1) the pressing health needs of the local villagers
and 2) the environmental protection of endangered tropical
forests. In a holistic manner, it combines community-based
health care with the overarching issues of deforestation,
global warming, and the conservation of the intricate balance
of life.
In the words of the program founder, Kinari Webb, “Health
in Harmony is inspired by the recognition that global health
for all depends on linking human and environmental health
at the local level.”
New! Newsletter
#60, in
December 2006 in Morelia, the state capital of Michoacán,
Mexico, David Werner was a keynote speaker at an international
Congress on Education and Culture on "Educational Reform."
He shared experiences using a "Child-to-Child"
approach both to facilitate the inclusion of children with
special needs, and to make schooling more enabling for all
children. This stimulated so much debate that Professor
Juan Hurtado, Director of the Technical Educational Consultancy
(CEE) for the State Dept. of Education, asked David to lead
a workshop in March (2007) on "ways to make education
more inclusive, relevant, and fun." The aim was to
train a core team of teachers and educators as "multipliers"
who could adapt the Child-to-Child methodology to local
needs and then progressively scale up the process across
the state. In this newsletter, David describes the workshop,
its evaluation by those who participated in it, and prospects
for mplementing these ideas on a larger scale. We also include
an update on PROJIMO.
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.
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
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