The first steps of a Grassroots Health Organization in Vancouver, Canada
" Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
Martin Luther King Jr
The first steps of any grassroots organization are like that of a toddler; shaky and uncertain at first, then slowly refined as we try and learn through practice. Coming home from the 2nd People's Health Assembly in 2005 in Cuenca, Ecuador, Martha Roberts, then a student midwife, was encouraged by other attendees to take the challenge of building a grassroots organization around the issue of health.
Now in the fall of 2007, the Alliance for People's Health (APH) is just one year old, yet off to a good start thanks in part to the strong connection to international struggles for health. "Over the past year we have held a number of events showing that the fight for people's health is a fight for social justice" recalls Yuly Chan, one of the APH's core organizers. Starting in the spring, the APH ran a 3-part study series called "Is Capitalism a Disease?" which linked growing health inequalities with the advancement of neoliberal policies and war.
In June, the APH hosted a one day session of the International People's Health University in Vancouver with many international delegates from the Peoples Health Movement. Maria Hamlin Zuniga shared with us her life experiences of organizing communities through health services and popular education in Nicaragua for the past 40 years. Later in the summer, we were grateful to have Dr. Constancio Claver as our guest speaker in describing the historical development of 'Liberation Medicine' in the Philippines.
More recently, the APH has taken on the international Health Now! campaign which was formulated and launched by health activists around the world including members of the People's Health Movement and the International League of People's Struggles. The Health Now! No War, No WTO, fight for People's Health campaign sees US-led war and the World Trade Organization as the two biggest threats to the health of people world-wide.
"We also want to expose and oppose the Canadian Government's role in the WTO, the war in Afghanistan and corporate plunder around the world and bring this analysis to health workers and community members here", says APH organizer Leonor Arenas. "Our best hope to fight for people's health, both here and abroad, is to get organized as poor and marginalized people and fight the neoliberal policies which threaten our health and livelihood. We see that at the root of ill health are the policies that funnel billions into war and profit instead of the health and development needs of all of the world's people."
You can contact the Alliance for People's Health at [email protected]
David Hendry (from the Alliance for People's Health, Canada)
