By Lezak Shallat L
ike a “process of conversion.” That’s how Lutherans described two weeks in January spent learn- ing popular education theory and practice on the streets of Santiago, Chile. Taught by ELCA partner Edu-
cación Popular en Salud (Popular Education in Health or EPES), the 2011 International Training Course brought participants from Chile, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Guate- mala, El Salvador, Haiti and the U.S. for a hands-on course in community health work. “Participants come to learn educational techniques and leave inspired by a new vision of dignity, participation and inclusiveness,” said Lisandro Orlov, one of the course’s key presenters and a Lutheran pastor from Argentina. Orlov, regional coordinator of the
Lutheran World Federation HIV/ AIDS campaign, said that in the past two years, EPES has trained eight of the Lutheran community workers with whom he serves. This year the annual course focused on “Dignity, Empowerment and Equity” and EPES’ experiences of providing psychosocial and mate- rial support in the wake of Chile’s Feb. 27, 2010, earthquake.
Thanks to funding from the ELCA
and the LWF, participants included Lutherans who work with church programs related to HIV/AIDS pre- vention in Peru, migrant education in the U.S., resettlement camps in Guatemala, earthquake victims in southern Chile and battered women in Santiago.
Shallat, a freelance journalist in Chile, works with Popular Education in Health.
Accompany empower
&
Lutherans learn this from the Popular Education for Health in Latin America
The Lutheran church in Latin
America “believes in the power of accompaniment,” said ELCA mis- sionary Karen Anderson, founder of EPES and director of the Interna- tional Training Course. “We comple- ment this by exploring and imparting strategies for empowerment.” Founded in 1982 during a military dictatorship, EPES began as a health training project of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile. It has grown from a small, emergency- response team to a leader in mobiliz- ing the community to improve health services and awareness. In 2002, EPES became an independent foun- dation. Working toward a vision of quality and fairness in health care for the poor, it offers training and sup- port for community health groups. Participants of the January train- ing helped local teams conduct com- munity health work. In the waiting room of a public clinic, they con- ducted a skit on a woman’s right to lead a dignified life without violence. At a busy street market, they helped female shoppers and their children
36 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
engage in an activity about violence against women. They also spread awareness about the links between violence against women and HIV/ AIDS.
The group visited both the EPES
Center in Concepción and emergency camps in Penco, where EPES is rebuilding homes for families dev- astated by the 2010 earthquake and tsunami. There, participants learned from local EPES leaders about ongo- ing community-based approaches to rebuilding lives.
Funding for this work has come, in part, from the ELCA and Action by Churches Together Alliance via the Inter-Ecclesiastic Emergency Relief Committee for Chile, which EPES and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile helped convene two days after the quake. “Seeing such passion and dedica- tion among grassroots health work- ers here is inspiring,” said Cristina Kinz, a graduate of Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. Kinz spent last year in Argentina with the ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission program
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