Building a Movement for Health

Red Jarilla de Plantas Saludables de la Patagonia (ARGENTINA)

Region: Latin America

Language: Spanish

Year: 2016

Source: contribution for the manual

Author(s): Sandra Marin (PHM Argentina)

Summary: Red Jarrilla is a network created in 2003 after a series of workshops on “plants for health”, animated mainly by women (health professionals) who wanted to strengthen self-control of health against the domination of the state and the market. Since there was no place to discuss the issue in the traditional healthcare setting, hostile to these topics, they created a separate space to exchange, interact and learn. It was also a reaction to the 2001 crisis in Argentina, as a form of resistance against neoliberal policies. The network meets annually and involves hundreds of people. The delegates meet every three months. The organisation is rather informal/unstructured, which allows for greater autonomy, flexibility and diversity (“…instead of projects, we have principles that guide us”). There is a digital and paper bullettin and some facebook groups; no web site.

For more information on this experience, please write to red.jarrilla@gmail.com.

Key practices: relationships, wellbeing, pleasure in doing things together, values; networking, alliances and cooperation; mutual learning, knowledge generation; popular education, creative and interactive training, transferable skill-building

Read the full case study here (in Spanish)