Bolivia 2007


Cultural instruments for the improvement of sexual and reproductive health

In 2007, Interarts Foundation (Barcelona) and Family Care International/Bolivia will work together in order to advance and strenghten the relationship between promotion and fulfilment of cultural rights and the development of abilities and conditions for the full enjoyment of sexual and reproductive rights. The work has as an objective to contribute to the reduction of cultural barriers related to the universal access to services of sexual and reproductive health care. The project aims at contributing to the advance and articulation of cultural factors in development processes related to the Millenium Goals 3 and 5 - promote gender equality and empower women and improve maternal health.

Cultural factors have been identified to function as a serious barrier for the access to services of sexual and reproductive health care in the countries in the Andean region. Even when the State guarantees the universal and free access to services of maternal and infalt health, indigenous women in rural areas are still in the periphery of these developements. Cultural barriers make it difficult for them to receive qualified health care which constitutes one of the indirect causes of high levels of maternal mortality experienced in these countries. The public offer of sexual and reproductive health services does not take into account the expectations, knowledge, traditions and the general cosmovision of their clients which results in the resistence of indigenous women to come to health care centres to receive adequate services. In the recent years, it has been possible to identify the importance of cultural factors that are related to sexual and reproductive health and there are many initiatives carried out in the field of intercultural dialogue in the communities at the same time as cultural factors are gaining importance in the programmes of sexual and reproductive health related to the most vulnerable groups in the society. This projects aims at introducing a new perspective / added value / a contribution to these dialogues and conceptual progress from the point of view of cultural rights as human rights.

With the support of the Spanish Agency for Cooperation International for Development (AECI), Interarts Foundation and Family Care International /Bolivia, will carry out the following actions in 2007:

1. Research, lobbying, awareness raising and dissemination on the conceptual progress related to the realization of cultural rights in the field of sexual and reproductive health as a new aproach to the strategies related to sexual and reproductive health in multicultural contexts.

2. To adopt, for the regions in cuestion in Bolivia, an extended version of the Guidebook of Intercultural Approach to Reproductive Health (Ministry of Health and Sports, La Paz, 2005), research on cultural factors that have an effect on the maternal mortality in certain regions in Bolivia. This work will be carried out in collaboration with the experts`group on Intercultural Health of the Ministry of Health and Sport, the departments of health in different regions in Bolivia (SEDES) as well as will the secretaries of health of indigenous civil society organizations.

3. To elaborate and disseminate information related to the necessities and cultural patterns of the indigenous poblation in rural areas in order to overcome cultural barriers that inhibit the demand of the services of sexual and reproductive health covered by the l Seguro Universal Materno Infantil (SUMI - Universal Insurance of Maternal and Infant Health), and to foster the knowledge on the riht to cultura and to the social participation at municipality level through the Local health Directives (DILOS).