Training School for Community Health Advocates

In September 2020, as the pandemic failed to abate and worsened, some of the collectives and associations making up the Museo Situado network devised a community initiative to be carried out in the spaces inside the Museo. Rooted in dialogue and listening, a self-organised community health school materialised, training health advocates to have an impact on social movements and migrant collectives from the Community of Madrid. It aims to equip advocates with sufficient information around COVID-19 and provide the necessary tools in order for them to raise awareness among the members of their community with respect to care under such unprecedented circumstances.

Through a lack of information, training and initiative by the Community of Madrid’s official organisations, the school sets out to provide a solidary solution to the current health situation, with classes taught by female health workers from the Yo Sí Sanidad Universal (Yes to Universal Healthcare) movement to two parallel groups of six over a morning-long session. Each class is made up of three themed blocks that address different problems directly affecting people who join this network of learning and dissemination: health and safety in dealing with COVID-19 — the pandemic situation in our environment; the operation of the healthcare system — how it works in our city; and the right to health. The school also has interpreters-mediators so the workshop can be translated into other languages, if necessary. From the outset, and beyond the Museo’s spaces, 60 people have participated in the school, acting as focal points in their communities and collectives and contributing to the dissemination of this urgent knowledge among many people.     

Alongside the creation of the school, female health workers have put together and circulated a “Medical Card of Community Care to Fight COVID-19”, translated into Bengali and French, so as to boost communication channels.   

Actions such as this one undertaken by collectives comprising the Museo Situado network enable visibility to be granted to the constant collective strength that seeks to resolve urgent issues that arise, both in Madrid’s Lavapiés neighbourhood and in other areas of the Community of Madrid.

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