administrators of the national healthcare system. Whereas the villager-run clinic had treated many serious common diseases, taught mothers and older children the treatment for diarrhea (a major cause of childhood death in the “Third World”), improved nutrition through the promotion of breast feeding, provided dental care, vaccinated farm animals, helped redistribute land and wiped out crippling polio, the Ministry of Health still sought to close them down. The Hesperian Foundation capitulated to government pressure by sending two village health workers to medical school in 1980. While they often returned during their studies to help at the clinic, eventually only one doctor remained in the village. He brought with him, however, another doctor: his new wife. Unfortunately, the female doctor had problems working in the countryside, and the couple left after five years. Today, the villager-run clinic treats patients without doctors. While the regular training of health workers has stopped, the clinic gives an occasional brush-up workshop for remote health workers. This year, the clinic health workers will bring together poor farmers to reflect on the changes in the new ejido law and to think about ways of preventing Mexico’s return to the pre-revolution days of large landholdings and slave-like conditions for the landless. PROJIMO Is Born In 1982, villagers created a community-based residential rehabilitation care center called PROJIMO. From the beginning it was staffed by many people who were themselves disabled. Children who suffered with polio came from all over Mexico to receive individual rehabilitation treatment. The villagers at PROJIMO became skilled in decreasing contractures, healing pressure sores, constructing low-cost braces and building wheelchairs. Other villagers temporarily took the disabled children and their families into their homes. After successful Piaxtla vaccination programs, the number of polio-afflicted children decreased and PROJIMO’s work shifted to helping people who had suffered spinal cord injuries (SCI). The number of these mostly gun-inflicted wounds increased with the rise in drug cultivation and trafficking. Before the program, people with SCI living in the remote, rural areas quickly died from severe pressure sores or urinary tract infections. At PROJIMO, the injured and their families learn to take care of their special needs. PROJIMO’s crew use various local or low-cost materials to increase mobility. For example, large, rugged bicycle wheels are used on wheelchairs for the rough village terrain, and honey is used to stop the multiplication of bacteria in pressure sores. PROJIMO tries to integrate therapy exercises with work. A little girl, whose therapy includes leg-straightening, sits and washes clothes with a large rock between her legs. While helping herself, she proudly helps her family like any other child. Since many of the staff are disabled, they set a positive example for the new arrivals. PROJIMO has a workshop, staffed by a man in a wheelchair, where residents build inexpensive folding and non-folding wheelchairs. PROJIMO focuses on disabled people’s strengths and teaches skills, both to make a living and to ensure that they will be valued by their communities when they return. Some disabled people stay long enough to learn the necessary skills to replicate the community-based rehabilitation model and help people in their own village. Through daily interaction, the Ajoya villagers have come to appreciate disabled people for their friendship and skills. Villagers with broken bikes or other equipment in need of welding, bring them to PROJIMO’s disabled wheelchair builder. Village children learn what it feels like to be disabled from the sensitizing games the staff organizes, such as racing blindfolded or with legs tied together. RAIN Spring 1993 Volume XIV, Number 3 Page 16
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