Educación para la Salud: Una Experiencia en Comunidades Rurales Marginales de la Provincia de Manabí, Ecuador

Health is of vital importance to all human beings. A person whose health is impaired will not be able to study, work and fully enjoy his or her life. Therefore, the right to health is a fundamental right of all human beings. The inhabitants of the marginal rural areas of the Manabí region suffer profound difficulties in accessing health care, for different reasons. As an alternative to improve access to health care, 14 communities were trained to introduce Community Health Kits equipped with essential palliative medicines and first aid material. The work was carried out considering the approaches of Participatory Action Research, Popular Education, the gender approach and, finally, the legal approach as a basic requirement for its development. The process ended successfully with the training of 12 Community First Aid Kit Managers and the assignment of 11 Community First Aid Kits. It is advisable to carry out other activities to follow up on the project, such as an evaluation study, workshops to review, expand and update the topics covered, especially to reinforce leadership and communication issues, and finally, it would be important to replicate the project in nearby communities that were excluded in this first phase.