Health Access/Acceso a la salud
The health access pillar, known as Project SALUD in the community, develops health education materials and tools that are culturally and linguistically appropriate. These materials are disseminated via Promotoras Comunitarias, our partners, and through our participation at community events.
Known by many names: promotores, peer educators and lay community health workers, they are community members who feel moved to serve their community. With training, these community leaders strengthen the well-being of their community through increased access to critical health information and links to community services and resources. Our dedicated Promotoras follow a bilateral communication model where they not only share critical information with their fellow community members, but also learn about the most pressing issues and concerns, as well as strengths, from the community. All of this bidirectional learning informs the products that are created by the RWHP.
Additionally, in collaboration with our healthcare provider partners, we coordinate health fairs within the counties we serve. This includes our annual blueberry farm health fair, made possible through our partnership with Alachua County Multi-Education. In April 2024, we kicked off our monthly clinic in Live Oak in collaboration with St Francis Xavier Catholic Church, UF Mobile Outreach Clinic, and Dr. Norman Beatty of UF Department of Medicine breaking down barriers by bringing healthcare services to rural community members.
The Choice Is Yours magazine features artwork, stories, advice, fotonovelas and poetry conveying the importance of self-esteem and the advocacy of self-responsibility. This project was a collaboration with the Aid to Inmate Mothers program (AIM), at Tutwiler Prison (a division of the Alabama Department of Corrections) and the RWHP. The messages of these women, developed through self-reflection on their personal struggles with the disease and substance abuse, share their optimistic plans to make a positive impact despite their physical and social conditions.
Click here to view "The Choice is Yours" magazine. You can order copies of the magazine from our product catalog.
Click through this slideshow to learn what HIV positive females want to share with others about their experiences as inmates in prison.
Click through the slideshow above to see what these inmates see when they close their eyes and dream of a better day.
"The collaboration was wonderful. It was special to the women that they had a product that included their names, their pictures and their ideas and because they were able to see that their thoughts counted."
"After the project, the morale of the women inside the prison went up because they felt that someone cared about what they had to say, they felt that their voice was important and that they were capable of producing something valuable."
5,000 copies of The Choice is Yours have been printed and will be distributed during orientation for new inmates throughout the Alabama Corrections System. Let us know if you are interested in using these materials in your work!
This project was created from a collaboration of AIM, Alabama Department of Corrections and the Rural Women’s Health Project, funded by the Southern HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative, Pfizer, Inc.