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Illustration by Grupo de la Mujer Rosario Castellanos.

Maternal Health and Safety in a Multicultural Context is a toolkit with materials and audio tips on how healthcare providers and others working to combat violence against women, especially in rural areas, can address violence against women. In 2003, three organizations came together to address the high levels of maternal deaths resulting from abuse in the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. Feel free to use the materials, modify them, and pass them on!

These groups realized that traditional indigenous midwives and other rural healthcare providers could be the key to saving women’s lives before, during and after pregnancy. Over the course of several years, the organizations worked with many people in rural, indigenous, and semi-urban communities to create the innovative materials that are presented in this toolkit. This includes the personal stories (in audio) of people who are working to end violence against pregnant women. Feel free to use the materials, modify them, and pass them on! Listen to a midwife talk about her experience in supporting pregnant women.

• What does this Toolkit contain?
• What will I learn from this Toolkit?
• Who is this Toolkit for?
• How can I use this Toolkit?

What does this toolkit contain?

• Strategies to help address violence and maternal health for health care providers and community leaders living in isolated rural areas
• Resources that can be used by people with low literacy skills, like audio dramas and drawing portfolios
• Real-life stories with recommendations, of leaders who are working with other pregnant women, told in their own voices
• Materials that were created in the United States and were then adapted for use in southern Mexico, with further adaptations for specific cultural contexts
• Materials to promote the leadership of indigenous women - especially indigenous midwives - to help bridges between indigenous and non-indigenous communities

What will I learn from this Toolkit?

This toolkit can help you:

• Understand what family violence is and how it impacts the health of pregnant women
• Identify pregnant women who are at risk for, or are being abused
• Learn how to document family violence
• Provide support for women who are being abused
• Raise public awareness about the issue of family violence and the risks it poses for maternal health—especially in rural, indigenous communities where literacy levels are low
• Create and implement trainings for other health care providers in different settings
• Establish a family violence response system in your health care facility

Who is this Toolkit for?

• In general, it’s for anyone who is looking for strategies to address violence against women, especially in rural areas where there are few resources for this kind of work.
• In particular, it’s designed for health care providers who come into contact with pregnant women—and for community workers who can pass this information on to healthcare providers.
• Health care providers include anyone who provides health services to people who are in need of care. This can include rural nurses and doctors, community health promoters, and traditional healers like midwives and herbalists. It also includes people who provide emotional and psychological support to patients, like medical social workers and therapists.
• Talking about maternal health can be a safe, non-threatening way to address broader issues of women’s rights, and the possibilities of a more just, equitable society.

How can I use this Toolkit?

This toolkit consists of several things:

• Materials available for download. You can make copies of these materials directly, or can use them as models and modify them for use in your own community.
• Recommendations and tips from the people who have created and used these materials. Sometimes it’s not enough to just see the work people have done. While we may find it inspiring, we’re often left wondering “how did they do it?” and, most importantly, “how can I do something similar?” For this reason, we have interviewed many people on how materials were created and used. You can read summaries of these recommendations and can also listen to people speaking in their own voices.
• Permission to reprint, adapt, and reproduce the materials included in this toolkit is granted, please follow these guidelines: Please give proper credit by including the source, author, and organization that produced it. We would like for people to use and adapt these materials. If you would like to reproduce these materials and add the name and logo of your organization, please request permission from the Family Violence Prevention Fund or organization that produced it, immigration@endabuse.org

We would like to hear from you about any feedback on the materials and how you use them. Please send your feedback to the Family Violence Prevention Fund e-mail: immigration@endabuse.org

You will need adobe reader to view and download the materials on this toolkit. You can download it for free here.