AMIGOS partners with Puente a la Salud Comunitario (Puente), Serivcios de Salud de Oaxaca (SSO), and the Trilingual Project in the state of Oaxaca. Our partners directly involve AMIGOS Volunteers and Project Staff in their ongoing community health and development efforts. Puente collaborates with AMIGOS to carry a unique "21 days of Amaranth" program to promote the consumption of this local grain. SSO leverages AMIGOS Volunteers as mulipliers of their public health efforts in communities. In 2013 AMIGOS is initiating a new partnership with the Trilingual Project to pilot a digital culture curriculum with indigineous youth in several communities.
Our work in Oaxaca
AMIGOS has been building strong ties with communities and public service organizations in the state of Oaxaca, México, for over 30 years. Volunteers promote community health and nutrition by working with local youth and community members to carry out the following activities:
I. Community Service
- Community-Based Initiative Process (CBIP): Volunteers collaborate with their host community in the implementation of a community-specific project.
- Extracurricular Activities: Together with local youth, Volunteers will plan and lead games and activities for children and youth ages anywhwere from 5-20. In 2012, Volunteers focused on themes selected in conjunction with our partner agencies.
II. Intercultural Exchange
- Living with a host family: Volunteers will have the opportunity to be immersed in Oaxacan culture by living with a host family. AMIGOS prefers that each Volunteer is assigned to their own host family, however, occasionally two Volunteers are placed with the same host family. Volunteers are expected to act as part of the family, helping out with chores and taking part in day to day activities. Volunteers will learn about the local culture, while also providing host families with insight into their own habits, ways of being in the world, and lives back home.
- Eating local food: Although eating arrangements vary from one community to another, a common strategy is for Volunteers to have a rotating meal plan, in which they eat with different families in the community.
- Indigenous Rights Awareness: Volunteers will have the opportunity to learn about the current status of Indigenous groups in Oaxaca and how they seek to maintain their culture and way of life.
III. Youth Engagement
- Mexican Youth: This project might have National Volunteers from other states in Mexico serving alongside US-based Volunteers.
- Local Volunteers: Prior to Volunteer arrival, local youth will be trained by AMIGOS project staff on the basic program structure and planning and facilitation skills.
- Forming youth groups: Volunteers are encouraged to be creative and form youth groups in their communities (i.e. afterschool girls group, reading club, ect.) when possible. This will provide local youth with a structure within which to continue activities started throughout the summer and ensure sustainability of summer initiatives.
About our Partners
Puente a la Salud Comunitaria is a non-governmental agency that seeks to empower the people of rural Oaxaca to improve their own health without extensive reliance on outside agencies. Their programs focus on sustainability through the promotion, planting, and consumption of amaranth facilitating an environment in which the communities are able to better their own health. Amaranth is a grain native to Oaxaca that contains high protein, calcium and folic acid, grows inexpensively and easily, and can be incorporated into many typical local dishes.
Servicios de Salud de Oaxaca: Providing quality health services, promoting self-care of the individual and the community through rational management, fair and transparent management of resources, with the explicit goal of reducing the high number of the Oaxacan population that does not have health insurance.FURTHER ACTIONS
Involving youth from across the Americas
Read about our Partner Agencies
