Programs - Health Care Collaborative
Soy Yo
Empowering Women in Local Communities
Soy Yo is SELF’s Women’s health program. Focusing on social justice as a value, SELF promotes equal opportunity for women. Gender equality is amongst one of the first topics we discuss in our leadership training for new community partners. Moving forward from the common cultural concept of “machismo”, many places in Latin America, including Honduras, are ready to increasingly embrace the empowerment of women as leaders in their communities.
Women's health as a pillar of community health
In Honduras, women are part of the essential structure of the home and the community. Family life at home in rural Honduras often consists of multiple generations living under one roof, and a healthy woman as the matriarch of the family often has a central role in maintaining the integrity and logistics of this social structure.
Prevention of cervical cancer
Currently, our Soy Yo program focuses on providing essential pap smears and follow-up for the women in our communities. Because cervical cancer is so prevalent in Honduras, pap smears are recommended for all women, every 6 months. The minimum goal of our Soy Yo Women’s Health program, is to be able to provide consistent and timely pap smears and essential follow-up for all of the women in our villages.
Beyond cervical cancer
Education is at the center of all of our programs and activities at SELF. We have already been able to host several workshops called “Foro Femenino” or Women’s Health Forums in the past few years. In the future, our goal is to expand the Soy Yo program to provide additional empowerment activities including educational talks about important topics such as domestic violence, self-esteem work-shops, and microenterprise opportunities.
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