Healthy Women Heathy Communities - About Us
About us
In April of 2001, we started a project to help improve the health of Hispanic women in Ottawa. The Ontario Women's Health Council provided funds for two and a half years so we could find out and demonstrate how the project works.
Four key partners worked together: a Latin American women's group LAZO; a Community Health Centre Centretown Community Health Centre; community-based researchers Gentium Consulting; and university-based researchers Community Health Research Unit. We used a capacity-building approach with the community. We focused on improving the community's access to information and services for breast and cervical cancer screening, starting with one linguistic minority community: Hispanic women in Ottawa.
Our model combines two approaches. Skilled community lay health promoters act as 'bridges' between isolated Hispanic women and publicly funded health promotion and screening services that should be available to all women. At the same time, the health-services community becomes more ready to meet a growing demand from Hispanic women. Partners and community advisors help identify barriers, develop strategies, and transfer knowledge into practice.
