Family and community health

For decades and as a consequence of multiple factors, many related to the processes of colonization, evangelization and the relations that have been established with the State, indigenous peoples have transformed their way of life and have settled in communities. Gradually, as in the rest of the country, due to violence and the search for services and opportunities, their migratory processes to urban and peri-urban areas have also accelerated.

In this context, families and communities constitute basic units of the social and political organization of these peoples and are essential in the configuration of any primary health care strategy. For this reason, this component is one of the pillars of the proposed health model.

To address this issue, it is necessary to make several reflections that allow us, first, to understand what is a community and what is a family in each context: how is the community organized in social, political and functional terms, what are the families that compose it and how are they distributed, how is the ethnic and clan composition of the community? Likewise, there are many questions about risk and protective factors specifically focused on health and well-being. In short, the challenge is to achieve the prioritization of problems and needs that guarantee an effective planning centered on the communities and that orients methodological tools in accordance with them. 

Many of the problems identified and most felt by the communities require the intervention of different sectors and indigenous organizations. The information derived from this component is an advocacy tool and input for processes of consultation and negotiation between the communities and the institutions. This work provides highly relevant inputs for the adaptation of life plans, the preparation of development plans and the generation of inter-institutional, sector and inter-sector plans that respond to what people really need in the territory.