The Wu Project is an organization born out of the need for decent and efficient health care in remote rural communities and also in urban impoverished areas all over the world. Our mission is simple in concept; to bring health and hope to those communities forgotten by the establishment. We do not discriminate by race, faith, political affiliation, gender, age and so forth. We are a humanitarian o
rganization. We consider that health is a basic unalienable human right that should not be the privilege of a few. There is a key sentence in the United States Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson that relates to our mission:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. How can people pursue Happiness if they are weakened and riddled by illness? How can they work if they are sick? The people in communities targeted by our Wu Project are not treated like equals, nor are they given a chance at finding happiness or liberty or a fulfilled life, they are simply forgotten by the system. As said before, our mission is simple and daunting, -we try to bring some relief to that situation by bringing basic health care training to those communities- . We are well aware of the limitations, challenges and of the enormity of the task ahead but every journey starts with a single step. And we are not alone. There are many other individuals and organizations already walking that path. Those organizations have proven that working at the grass root levels is cost efficient and fills in the gaps where the already established systems can not or would not reach. Still we need more of them, more of us. Each organization and individual working in humanitarian relief, does so from a different aspect. Every aspect is needed. To mention a few: There are organizations made out of Medical Doctors, pediatric surgeons that perform operations in children affected by cleft palate called, Operation Smile. Others travel to impoverish countries and provide vaccinations, other organizations bring eye surgeons to perform cataract operations therefore treating easily fixable blindness. Other organization provide amputees with prosthetics so they can have a chance at life. There is a long list of charitable organizations in the health field. Why are we also needed? What will we provide? Where do we fit in? The Wu Project was founded by two Acupuncture Physicians, therefore, the heath care training that it will be providing is based in the Oriental Medical Tradition. Maria Rosa Romero and Alicia Villamarin, -the founders of the Wu Project, both Licensed Acupuncture Physicians-, have traveled the world extensively. Many of these trips have taken place while collaborating with relief organizations in impoverished areas in South East Asia, Central and South America and Africa. Even though the quality of the work by the teams was good, what became obvious over the years is that the care provided by the teams needed continuity. The obvious solution was to train individuals that stayed in those communities tending to the needs of the people. Even though there is no doubt of the effectiveness of the western medical system, there are important factors to take into account: The training and practice of medicine in the Western medical paradigm is extremely expensive. Like wise, to convince qualified Medical Doctors to live in those, less than adequate conditions, in remote rural regions is a loss battle. To build and equip hospitals and clinics with the tools, machinery, medications -and qualified personnel- that western medical diagnosis and treatment needs to perform in these remote areas -where electricity and water are a scarce commodity, communication is erratic and the people are spread out- is an unrealistic goal. The Oriental Medical Tradition, although not well understood nor broadly used in the Western Hemisphere, has been for thousands of years, the main form of health care in the Eastern part of the world as their Traditional Medicine. As the World Health Organization explains it:
“Traditional medicine (TM) refers to the knowledge, skills and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, used in the maintenance of health and in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness. Traditional medicine covers a wide variety of therapies and practices which vary from country to country and region to region. In some countries, it is referred to as "alternative" or "complementary" medicine (CAM). Traditional medicine has been used for thousands of years with great contributions made by practitioners to human health, particularly as primary health care providers at the community level. TM/CAM has maintained its popularity worldwide. Since the 1990s its use has surged in many developed and developing countries” . (www.who.int/topics/traditional_medicine/en/)
The model that we propose to use in our training is mainly based on Traditional Chinese Medicine. This model, although oriental in origin, has been proven to be cost-effective and well received by cultures other than oriental and, as the WHO admits:
“used particularly as primary health care providers at the community level”. The training, though, will be modified accordingly to respect customs and traditions in each part of the world. It is not the intention of The Wu Project organization to establish Chinese Medical Schools all over the world but to train local individuals in a curriculum inspired by the success of the “Barefoot Doctor” model of the People’s Republic of China. The Barefoot doctors program started in China in the 1930s and became institutionalized in 1968 as an effort to provide health services to its enormous rural population, especially in areas where regular urban-trained doctors would not settle. These barefoot doctors were farmers who received minimal basic medical training; they promoted health and preventive health care and treated common illnesses referring those patients with more serious illnesses to township and county hospitals. (Stephen Russell, the Taoist practitioner, see The Barefoot Doctor.) (Xiaoping Fang, Barefoot Doctors and Western Medicine in China (Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 2012). The Barefoot doctor system left an important historical legacy. This was hailed as a revolutionary breakthrough in international health ideology. It was among the most important inspirations for the WHO conference in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in 1978 where the Alma Ata Declaration was signed unanimously.[http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/12/08-021208/en/]
In the same article in the WHO bulletin: “Writing in the Young Voices in Research for Health 2007 essay competition sponsored by the Global Forum for Health Research and the Lancet, the doctoral student at the Harvard School of Public Health said: “The impact of barefoot doctors in rural health-care services still exists. Today, both researchers and policy-makers have widely acknowledged it is hard to bring people to work in rural areas. Even the developed countries have experienced a difficult time attracting medical professionals to rural places [so] training local people seems to be the optimal solution [in] building sustainability in rural health-care services.”
Our objectives are to identify areas in remote rural regions in the world that have little or no access to health care. In those areas, work with the local population and train the chosen health workers in our Traditional Chinese Medicine curriculum. That curriculum is based and inspired by the barefoot doctor tradition but not limited to Traditional Chinese medicine teachings. The trainings will be done by Licensed Health Professionals with expertise in different areas of the medical field as guest teachers when possible. The founders Maria Romero and Alicia Villamarin will be the main trainers assisted by other health professional volunteers. The training will take place in the local communities where the trainees are from. There will be theory teaching time and practicum. There will be student clinics. The training will focus on preventive care, diagnosis and treatment of diseases; it also includes teaching how to establish and operate self-sustainable permanent and mobile clinics. Nationally, the organization will focus on bringing health services to groups of society with special mental or physical health needs such as homeless, veterans, abused and domestic violence victims, addicts in recovery etc, working alone or in collaboration with local, national, and global groups.
