Sacred Valley Health is a community-based, public health non-profit formed in 2012 to improve access to healthcare in remote communities of Peru’s Sacred Valley. Our core purpose is to improve the health and well-being of these underserved, marginalized communities through a community health worker program that empowers local women with education, resources, professional development, and economic opportunities
The Need
We work in partnership with vibrant indigenous communities located high in the Andean mountains of Peru’s Sacred Valley. These communities are full of culture and tradition but lack access to essential services such as basic healthcare. Due to marginalization, our partner communities have experienced preventable health hardships – such as pneumonia, malnutrition, and large gaps in care for women – for many generations. Continued marginalization has led to perceiving these issues as an expected part of life. Compounded by the hardships of poverty, this means that engaging in prevention behavior hasn’t been a top priority and effecting change is an uphill battle.
Community Health Workers Model
Our Community Health Worker Program bridges gaps in resources by training, supporting, and employing women from these communities, locally called promotoras de salud. At Sacred Valley Health we practice equal partnerships with communities where they are central in developing programming to address health disparities in ways that best fit the community. This has enabled us to create a program that is sustainable and culturally competent. Our custom curriculum, designed specifically for indigenous health workers, focuses on preventative health measures for individual behavior change and specific health issues relevant to this region of Peru. Our curriculum development process requires collaboration and approval from local, Quechua-speaking staff at every step. This process also ensures local staff are trained and well versed in program development skills. Our goal is that by providing high quality, culturally relevant health education and resources based on local learning methodology, community health knowledge and educational programming will continue when our presence is no longer needed.
