For more than 40 years, Hesperian Health Guides has worked to improve the health of people worldwide by publishing heavily illustrated and easy-to-understand health education materials.

Beginning with our signature book, Where There Is No Doctor, we have worked to empower disenfranchised people with knowledge that helps them to advocate for themselves and improve their health.
 

Over the years, the focus of our publications has expanded from community healthcare alone to encompass disability and environmental health and women’s and workers’ rights to more fully address the underlying causes of poor health. One huge barrier to good health is the lack of women’s rights, which increases the likelihood of limited health resources and violent living conditions for women. Thus, in 2015 we released Health Actions for Women, a book that had its inception 20 years ago in Guatemala.
 

In the mid-1990s, Dr. Melissa Smith, a physician and health organizer, was working with a women’s group in Guatemala as part of ASECSA (Asociación de Servicios Comunitarios de Salud). The group was using Hesperian’s Where Women Have No Doctor to identify, treat, and prevent women’s health problems. The book provided important and accessible health information, but they needed practical organizing tools to tackle obstacles to women’s access to health services and women’s unequal status leading to poor health. The idea for Health Actions for Women was born – to help share experiences, expertise, and stories of women fighting for the right to health the world over.

A group of women in Guatemala discuss women’s health issues using activities from Health Actions for Women.

Dr. Smith and Hesperian organized a group of experienced female health workers and activists to collaboratively begin work on this new, desperately needed resource. Health Actions for Women provides strategies for organizing in the community for better women’s health, covering difficult to discuss topics such as gender-based violence, abortion, sexuality, and family planning. In order to make this resource available to as many people as possible, we have published it as a book and also on our free online HealthWiki. It has already been translated into Khmer and Urdu, with Spanish, Nepali, Lao, Bengali, and Chinese translations underway.

In addition to making our resources available in so many languages, every Hesperian book and each individual translation incorporates feedback from our partners on the ground and is collaboratively field-tested by grassroots health workers and educators. Partners read draft chapters and try out the stories and activities, providing comments, criticism, and suggestions to improve the material based on their experiences. Health Actions for Women was tested by community groups in 23 countries and includes many stories from these pioneering women’s health initiatives, projects and groups.

The experiences our partners shared with us highlight the myriad ways Health Actions for Women can used to improve women’s health in the community. For example, men in Guinea were so inspired by the book’s description of a Tanzanian men’s organization working to prevent gender-based violence that they decided to start their own group.

Find other examples in our new interactive map, which shares more stories from the field-testing partners that helped shape Health Actions for Women.

The right health information in the right hands can transform a community. Amy Wilson, a former Hesperian board member who has used Hesperian materials with community groups in Brazil, said, “People start to realize, ‘Whoa – I can take care of myself, I can get together with other people, I can discuss these problems. Other people have these same difficulties in society, and we can band together.’ And it happens!”