CHALLENGE
Empowerment in healthcare
How can we guarantee the right to health for all? Viva Salud took Docwerkers under its wing to portray their vision in an educational video.
Health is a fundamental right that is unfortunately threatened for many on our planet by poverty, inequality, exploitation and war.
Viva Salud, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) working for the right to health and sovereign development, is fighting this battle with social movements in the Philippines, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere.
Approach
Learning from Cuban healthcare
We decided to make a comparison between the situation for patients in Cuba and the Philippines.
The Philippines, a developing country, does not have obvious access to healthcare. What role can 'community health workers' play in this?
Cuba, on the other hand, is known worldwide for its excellent public healthcare, completely free to its population. How does a developing country like Cuba manage to offer this top-quality healthcare free of charge?
APPROACH
Research and practical organisation in hands
Docwerkers took on not only the research for the stories, but also the practical organisation of the trip and filming.
In the Philippines, we worked with CHD, Viva Salud's partner organisation. We chose stories from the working-class neighborhood Parañake, a slum next to the Manila airport, which is representative of the situation of millions of Filipinos.
In Cuba, we joined forces with film producer Maria Carla del Rio, the Ministry of Health and the Cuban Film Commission to ensure the necessary access.
Filming took place near Policlínico 19 de Abril in Havana.
RESULT
Internationally deployable
Through the stories of ordinary people, the vision and policy documents become accessible and concrete. We see how Jimmy has to struggle to make ends meet, and how Emma saves the life of an infant. We meet Dr Gisela, and join her on a tour through her neighbourhood.
We made language versions in Spanish, English and Dutch. The video has resonated globally within the movement for the right to health and is regularly requested for conferences and seminars.
The English-language version has been viewed more than 20,000 times on Youtube.
