• Dr. Wilfrido Torres, CFHI's Medical Director
• 47 individuals who serve indigenous communities under the guidance of Dr. Torres

CFHI hopes to support further trainings for Community Health Promoters in the Shuar region of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Forty-seven individuals, who serve indigenous communities that would otherwise have very little access to healthcare, have gone through two stages of training and are now in the third stage. This set of trainings is focused on promoting communication between these health promoters, with the goal of improving and strengthening the capacity of the health promoters to address basic healthcare issues within their communities. The project will also bring legitimacy to their efforts by integrating their training, and its oversight, more tightly within the public healthcare system.

In the first year of this project, CFHI funding paid for the purchase of a motorized canoe to provide bi-monthly medical visits to communities along the shores of the Pastaza and Kapawi rivers, targeting anti-malarial vaccinations. The project was designed specifically by community members to address their need for swifter access to preventative and/or emergency healthcare treatment. The aim of the project was two-fold: to provide easier access to vital healthcare treatments, and to alleviate the strain on other under-resourced but expensive emergency air-evacuation service by helicopter. The trainee health promoters, women and men, have acquired practical new healthcare skills and are regarded as vitally important members of their communities.

The process of integration, and the creation of networking opportunities, has enabled the health promoter students to become in the fullness of time, the teachers. In practice, this means we are leveraging the existing power of the community infrastructure-including women, shamans, elders/teachers-and the government health care system.

For example, Susana Tuitza became a health promoter in her village of Shakai because of the many health problems there and because the nearest clinic is eight hours away by foot. Following her training, Susana has cured many people of mycosis, a skin fungus. In addition, she was able to treat an outbreak of diarrhea in the village. During the past five years, CFHI's training of health promoters like Susana not only has increased awareness of public health among the Shuar but has helped to make Shuar communities much more self-sufficient.