Dominican Republic: Community Mapping in Bateyes
Provided by PRIME II VOICES
?The maps will help us in the future so that the government will
take us into account in development plans.?
Altagracia Feliciano, a health promoter in Batey Esperanza,
Dominican Republic, recently participated in a community
mapping exercise conducted by the PRIME II Project as part of
a new reproductive health program in the country?s bateyes.
Home to former sugar cane workers displaced when the industry
was privatized, the bateyes are characterized by substandard
living conditions.
Mapping the houses in the seven bateyes where PRIME II will
work was an integral component of baseline activities for the
future evaluation of the program. The maps will also be used to
designate which households will be served by each of the health
promoters who will be trained through the intervention. But for
Ms. Feliciano and the other promoters, who drew the first
versions of the maps with technical assistance from PRIME, the
maps quickly assumed broader significance. Provincial agencies
involved in delivering a variety of services are interested in using
the maps, and mayors and community officials have
requested copies.
Residents of the bateyes also became active in the mapping
process, which commenced with the spectacle of two ?gringos?
standing atop a tin roof pointing and looking around. Community
members initially failed to understand what this sort of
exercise could possibly have to do with a program to improve
their health. But the maps soon became symbolic in other ways.
In communities that had never been charted on paper, the maps
provided a newfound sense of place and pride. ?You can see
where your house is and that makes you feel good,? said one
community member. ?And anybody can find us here with the
map, no matter where they?re from.?
The enthusiasm generated by the maps bodes well for the
implementation of PRIME II?s intervention, which will tap into
the vibrant culture of the bateyes through the health promoters
and the popular medium of local radio. In collaboration with
the Dominican Institute for Community Action, PRIME is
training 35 promoters in reproductive health skills using a
curriculum developed by project partners Intrah, PATH and TRG
that emphasizes the promoters? role in family planning education,
community-based provision of family planning methods, and
HIV/STI prevention. The radio programs, covering specific topics
in reproductive health, will be followed by community discussions
led by the promoters.
If, as Ms. Feliciano hopes, the maps generate additional development
projects to help the impoverished and neglected bateyes, then
they will have succeeded as a mini-intervention of their own: a
fortuitous synergy of improved reproductive health care and
community identity and empowerment.
For more success stories, visit
Prime
II Voices.
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