AFRO-NETS> Hesperian Foundation: Information for midwives

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Hesperian Foundation: Information for midwives
----------------------------------------------
 
Hello everyone,
 
I'm writing from the Hesperian Foundation, a non-profit publisher 
of books and materials for community health and empowerment, most 
well-known for our classic guide, "Where There Is No Doctor". In 
response to several people that have asked about good resources 
or training materials on midwifery, I'd like to share a little 
bit about our experience in publishing our book entitled "A Book 
for Midwives", in addition to our philosophy on making health re-
sources accessible to as large an audience as possible.
 
Some years ago Hesperian found the need to produce a training 
manual for midwives that was written in a clear, low-literacy, 
highly illustrated manner (as is our style). Furthermore, we 
wanted the book to represent real life conditions and situations, 
especially given that many communities are operating on little or 
no resources. Not to mention that the local midwife is oftentimes 
the only health care worker around! The book was then created in 
collaboration with midwives all over the world who not only 
helped with the writing, but also took part in an intensive field 
testing process. In this way, we could ensure that the book would 
not only be accessible, practical, and relevant in terms of its 
content, but would also be culturally appropriate and valuable to 
a larger audience of women. And, as with any collaboration, the 
process of creating the book resulted in a wonderful sense of 
community-building and partnership, in which we all felt that our 
ideas and knowledge of midwifery and childbirth were represented.
 
The book was published in 1995, and since then has been widely 
used around the world. As the book was created as a training man-
ual, it acts as a tool for further replication of knowledge. It 
has been used on both an institutional level, for example as a 
coursebook at the midwifery school Maternidad La Luz in El Paso, 
as well as on an individual level, with one midwife then training 
another, using the practical ideas and activities represented 
within the manual.
 
Furthermore, Hesperian holds an "open-copyright" policy which al-
lows any organization to translate and adapt our materials, so 
long as they also produce the book in a collaborative manner and 
do not sell the book for a profit. In this way, we promote the 
idea that the knowledge that the book holds will then continue to 
reproduce itself and get disseminated to an even larger popula-
tion of women. Since 'A Book for Midwives' was released, transla-
tions have been done in Spanish, Chinese, Farsi, Khmer and Viet-
namese, with Tetum and Swahili versions on the way. If you are 
interested in any of these translations, you can contact me for 
more info (see below).
 
Through all these means, we know that the knowledge of midwifery 
and women's health continues to be passed along, empowering one 
woman after another. As many of you have mentioned in recent 
postings, central points such as partnerships, community reviews, 
meeting local needs, and empowering people to participate in 
their own health care are key to the success of disseminating 
health care information all across the globe.
 
If any of you have any questions about 'A Book for Midwives' or 
about Hesperian Foundation in general, please feel free to write!
 
Lisa Gonzalves
Hesperian Foundation
mailto:lisa@hesperian.org
http://www.hesperian.org

--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org