Networks/International

 

The Latin American and Caribbean Women and Health Network

The Latin American and Caribbean Women and Health Network was created in May 1984 at the First Regional Women and Health Meeting, organized by the Corporacion Regional par el Desarrollo Integral de la Mujer y la Familia, based in Bogota, Colombia. The meeting was attended by more than 70 women from 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries who unanimously expressed the need for such a network. Isis International was asked to coordinate this network from our resource center in Santiago, Chile. This task has become one of our major activities.

The work includes:

• creating a specialized data base on health issues
• acting as a clearinghouse to disseminate materials
• creating a specialized data base of health groups
• providing a referral service on health information and groups
• producing a bimonthly bulletin on health with information about and from the member groups of the network and resource listings of materials available on health issues
• promoting and coordinating action campaigns, together with members of the network.

An important aspect of the work is the provision of communication channels not only among women and health groups in Latin America and the Caribbean but between them and other networks and groups working on women and health issues around the world. Special emphasis is given to facilitating exchange of information and experiences with other groups working in the Third World.

ACHAN

Asian Community Health Action Network

Flat 2A, 144 Prince Edward Road Kowloon, Hong Kong

ACHAN, which was founded in 1980, has two primary objectives: 1) to publicize, popularize and struggle for a philosophy of community health, and 2) to facilitate the exchange of information between its members by helping to support and maintain a working health program in the community through nongovernmental organizations in Asia. The philosophy of this group visualizes health as a physical, mental, social and spiritual totality of the individual and of the community, and not merely as the delivery of medical services. This implies ensuring that health is comprehensible and available to all, through such methods as traditional medicine, appropriate technologies, auxiliary assistance and the commitment of the community to plan, implement and evaluate programmes of medical assistance. ACHAN is developing a data bank of people, programmes, technologies and documentation concerning the Asian experience in health communities, made by Asians themselves. The network also supports its members in technical training and other programmes.

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective

Box 192 West Somerville, MA 02144 USA

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective began in 1969 as an informal discussion/action group on childbirth, abortion and other health issues and has developed into a leading group in the women's health movement. It has written the books Our Bodies, Ourselves, now out in a new rewritten and updated version, and Ourselves and Our Children. The Collective has played an important role in the women's health movement nationally and internationally. It maintains an extensive collection of materials of women's health information in its center and answers hundreds of requests for information every year. The collective also provides information through a speakers bureau, workshops, and participation in conferences.

The Collective works closely with national, international and community women's groups promoting health information, action and several projects. We are reprinting some excerpts from the introduction to the New Our Bodies, Ourselves which give more information about the work of the Collective and their book (see box on next page).

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The New Our Bodies, Ourselves

The New Our Bodies, Ourselves is out, a completely rewritten and updated version of Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book that women all over the world have used and valued as one of the most important and helpful resources on women's health. The new book is even more wonderful than the first. Let us hope that it can be translated and circulated as widely as possible around the world. We would like to let the women from the Boston Women's Health Book Collective tell about their new book themselves, by printing excerpts from the introduction:

In 1969, there was practically no women's health information easily available, and every fact we learned was a revelation. Our first publication of Our Bodies, Ourselves helped spark many women to explore the health issues most important to them. Since then, women throughout this country and the world have generated such a wealth of information and resources — research papers, books, health groups and centers, newsletters and journals — that this time around we turned to them for help in rewriting the book...

This rewrite reflects our Collective's long-time commitment to keeping the book up to date. Health and medical information changes quickly; new health problems come to the fore; legal and political realities shift, changing people's access to information and care. Equally important, our own political awareness keeps changing: the more we learn, the less we believe that the medical system as it is structured today can or will alter to meet our needs. So in this book, less medically oriented than previous editions, we emphasize what we as women can do for ourselves and for one another, and we often discuss nonmedical perspectives and remedies as well as medical ones. The thousands of women who contact us in person, in letters and by phone have opened up whole new subjects and issues for revisions: "I looked in your book for a discussion of in vitro fertilization and couldn't find it." "You've got to include the experiences of differently-abled [disabled] women next time." "This is what happened to me when I got PID [pelvic inflammatory disease]; tell other women about it so they will be forewarned and know how to get the right kind of treatment." "Could you please say more about lesbians and medical care?" Such comments in the past have led to the book becoming denser and longer each time. This edition is no exception....

We expanded some of the original sections, such as "Women in Motion" and "Violence Against Women," into chapters in their own right. Some entirely new chapters are "Health and Healing: Alternatives to Medical Care"; "Alcohol, Mood-Altering Drugs and Smoking"; "Environmental and Occupational Health"; "New Reproductive Technologies." After noting that in previous editions our discussions of the life cycle always ended with menopause, older women vehemently told us that indeed there is life after menopause. Together with them we wrote an all-new chapter on growing older. The chapter on international issues grew out of our correspondence and conversations with women whom some of us met in Asia, Latin America and Europe, and who visit our office to tell us about the health situations of women in their own countries as they collect information to bring back home. While this continues to be a book written primarily by white women, it includes experiences and information gathered by women of color.

Our Collective consists of the same core group who worked on the 1973 edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves (minus one)…

Most of us have other work in addition to working for the Collective. Now that revisions are over, we plan to do more public speaking nationwide about many of the issues in this book. Most important, we will be raising funds to keep our health information center going and vital. ...

It is clear that the same forces which created the need for Our Bodies, Ourselves twelve years ago exist today as strongly as ever. The medical system is a vast business, now tied more closely than ever to other businesses in this profit-oriented economy. Rich and poor receive very different types of health and medical care. Preventive health care is not only a low national priority, but reimbursement policies actually discourage prevention. Industries continue to pollute the environment. Misogynist archconservative mentality, money and policy drive women out of the workforce, deprive women of needed prenatal, abortion and birth control services and cut down access to health information. Drug companies continue to make huge profits by selling products often harmful to women, "dumping" into other countries those drugs judged to be too old or unsafe here. So now, more than ever before, we hold to our original goals:

• to fit as much information on women's health between the covers of this book as we can;
• to let women's different voices and experiences speak out in its pages;
• to reach as many women as possible with the tools which will enable them to take greater charge of their own health care and their lives, deal with the existing medical system and fight whenever possible for improvements and changes;
• to support those women and men working for change both within and outside the existing system of health and medical care;
• to work to create a more just society in which good health is a right, not a luxury, a society which does not perpetuate unequal relationships between the sexes.

Above all, we want to encourage women to get together - to meet, talk and listen to each other. ...

- From Norma, Nancy, Vilunya, Wendy, Pam, Paula, Esther, Joan, Judy, Ruth, Jane

465 Mt. Auburn Street Watertown, MA 02172

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Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE)

FINRRAGE is an international network of women which numbers 542 participants in 18 countries. It was founded during the Second Women's Interdisciplinary Congress, "Women's Worlds: Strategies for Empowerment," held in Groningen, Holland in April 1984. The network's objectives are the following:

1. To inspect the development of research in the field of genetic engineering: asexual reproduction, in vitro techniques, the transfer of embryos, sex selection and experimentation with human/animal hybrids.
2. To evaluate the implications of these as well as other practices, such as surrogate maternity and artificial insemination, in terms of the future socio-economic position and wellbeing of women on an international scale, and to investigate their impact on the family structure.
3. To gather together the members of the network on a regular basis in order to share information related to international population policies and to develop an ensemble of alternative policies and strategies for examination and discussion in women's groups.
4. The network is involved at an international level in the education of women on the interaction of technology, population policies and the objectives of sexual equality. This educational process will facilitate the conscientization of women as well as their participation in decision-making with respect to health issues, population policies and social well-being within their own countries.

FINRRAGE organized an Emergency Conference of Women on New Reproductive Technologies which was held at Lund, Sweden in July 1985.

Please address correspondence to:

Renate Duelli Klein

7 Harlingford Road

London NW 3, England

HAI

Health Action International

Emmastraat 9 2595 EG The Hague, Netherlands

P.O. Box 1045 Penang, Malaysia

Created in 1981, HAI is a network of 50 organizations in 26 countries. It coordinates activities and promotes the exchange of ideas and resources among consumers of medicine and development groups for the purpose of protesting the ill treatment of consumers by multinational drug companies who manufacture and market medicines which are often dangerous, inappropriate and expensive.

HAI maintains a documentation center on the structure of the drug industry, its owners and marketing practices. It has developed a code for the use of medicines which places primary importance on the health of the consumer. HAI promotes the formation of local groups that can publicize these issues in their own countries and influence their governments to adopt health policies for the correct use of medicines as well as educate consumers and health professionals about the use of medicines.

HAI also publishes a bi-monthly bulletin, HAI News.

IBFAN

International Baby Food Action Network

IBFAN Geneva, c/o GIFA

P.O. Box 157

1211 Geneva 19, Switzerland

IBFAN is a coalition of voluntary organizations in developed and developing countries which works towards improving children's health and nutrition, through the promotion of maternal breast-feeding and the elimination of irresponsible marketing of baby foods.

Following the growing protest against inappropriate baby formula, WHO and UNICEF called a meeting in Geneva in 1979, inviting organizations which carry out such campaigns as well as government representatives, representatives of the baby food industry and health professionals. The consumer groups and citizen organizations present at the meeting decided to unite their forces and thus created the IBFAN network.

There are currently over 100 groups which share information and coordinate actions in 64 countries across the world. The recommendations issued by WHO and UNICEF were incorporated into the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes which was adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 1981 by an overwhelming majority of 118 to 1. The Code is one of the first specific international regulations for consumer protection. It specifies which market practices must be eliminated and which should be carefully controlled, and constitutes a criterion by which to measure the ethics of the baby food industry. It also encourages governments to convert these recommendations into law.

IBFAN publishes a bimonthly bulletin in which it presents information on various actions being organized in different parts of the world related to baby food.

In 1984 it also published a report entitled "Breaking the Rules" which includes information on the violations of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes by commercial companies manufacturing and selling these products.

IOCU

International Organization of Consumer Unions

9 Emmastraat

The Hague, Netherlands

P.O. Box 1048

Penang, Malaysia

The International Organization of Consumers Unions (IOCU) is a federation of consumer organizations in 50 countries dedicated to the protection and promotion of consumer interests around the world through research, information and education activities. It is an independent and nonpolitical foundation.

IOCU has various publications, including a bulletin called "Consumer Currents" which presents details of research and publications especially on drugs and baby foods. A new IOCU report is "Generating Power: A Guide to Consumer Organizing." "The poor, the powerless and the underprivileged are consumers whose market freedoms are eroded by poverty and who are ignored by economic systems where production responds to market demand, not to people's needs. In most countries around the world consumer needs are determined by forces outside people's control - by governments, corporations and advertising agencies. Consumers need to be both active and organized to ensure that their interests are considered in these very basic political decisions." The Report is also an effort to sum up the lessons learned from various campaigns and to give some basic guidelines for organizing future campaigns.

NWHN

National Women's Health Network

224 Seventh Street S.E.

Washington, D.C. 20003, USA

NWHN is one of the cornerstones of the women's health movement in the United States. Founded in 1976, it is financed by the contributions of the thousand or so members of the Network. It has subsidized community groups active in the area of health, supporting various education projects, a committee to help victims of domestic violence, and the Reproductive Rights National Network. It has also lent support to campaigns to defend the right to abortion; to oppose sterilization abuse and the approval of Depo-Provera; and to support approval of the cervical cap, an effective and safe contraceptive. The NWHN produced a detailed report in cooperation with 38 national organizations on the effects on women and their families of cutbacks implemented by President Reagan in a series of social programmes.

The Network also works with consumer groups and coalitions on such issues as health, security, nutrition, aging, disabilities, and other civil rights issues.

It publishes a bimonthly bulletin, guides to health resources in Braille and on cassettes, other books, information packets, reports, and so on.

The Network has organized legal actions in support of DES victims, against the company which manufactured and sold this drug, as well as an action against the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device made by the A.H. Robbins pharmaceutical company.

Women's Global Network on Reproductive Rights

Postbus 4098

1009 AB Amsterdam, Netherlands

Formerly known as the International Contraception, Abortion and Sterilization Campaign (ICASC), this network shares information on an international level on the following issues: the right of women to decide whether or not to have children and when to have them; the right to effective and safe contraception; the right to legalized and safe abortions; freedom from the abuse of forced sterilization.

The Network establishes ties between new groups and already existing ones which support these objectives. It organizes international solidarity and research and distribution of methods of contraception, abortion and sterilization, including work done by feminist clinics and women health workers. It also carries out international projects; it participates in international meetings and works with organizations involved in women's health, holds coordination meetings on a regular basis, publishes and distributes a bulletin three times a year, and sends regular reports to all affiliates. The Network hopes that whoever shares its objectives will become affiliated. It is open to all groups and organizations that support its goals; participate actively in the coordination meetings; send information on their activities and on the situation in their particular country; request solidarity and support if needed; publicize information to be disseminated to other groups in their country; subscribe to and distribute the bulletin, if it can be translated; and contribute financially to the work involved.

WHEN

Women's Health Education Network

Box 99

Debert, NS, BOM 160 Canada

WHEN puts women in contact with each other and promotes awareness, through information, of the need for more control and responsibility over one's own health, to generate more and better education, information and systems of assistance, and to work with other women in the community in order to identify common needs.

WHEN defines health as more than merely the absence of sickness. It supports the physical, mental, emotional and environmental health of women and their families through its information center, a quarterly bulletin, a newsletter called "New at WHEN," conferences, political actions in defense of women's health, coordination, and assistance to those who are setting up women's clinics.

WHI

Women's Health Interaction

c/o Inter Pares

58 rue Arthur Street

Ottawa, Ontario

K1R 7B9 Canada

WHI was founded in 1982 as the result of a course held in Quebec, Canada on women and pharmaceuticals.

It aims to link up women's groups and women on a local and international level in order to develop and exchange educational materials on health, and to examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the medical system and their effects on the lives of women.

WHI has also developed an exchange programme for women which sends people to Third World countries and alternately hosts women in Canada. These exchanges provide a better understanding of common problems as well as being a constructive and enriching experience.

WHI began to investigate the issue of population control and family planning from the point of view of the implications for women's liberation and Third World women. It has published an information pamphlet, "For Health or for Profit?" on the pharmaceutical industry in Canada and the Third World. It is also working with a theatrical group in Canada to present a piece entitled "Negative Effects" on the theme of women and pharmaceuticals.