Guatemala: Community and ancestral knowledge before Covid 19

By Hugo Icu Peren, PHM Mesoamerica

Community and ancestral knowledge in the face of Covid 19 is the name of this case study in Guatemala that gathers the lived experience of community health agents: health promoters, midwives and traditional therapists in the framework of primary health care in times of pandemic. 

In the face of official biologistic, welfarist and mercantilist health systems, community health once again demonstrates its effectiveness in difficult times, when health services collapse and show their inefficiency. 
With the use of traditional medicine, ancestral and cosmogonic practices for health promotion, prevention, care and rehabilitation actions, with cultural relevance before covid 19; the forecasts and statistics did not have a strong impact on rural and indigenous communities as expected. 

These knowledge and practices are based on the indigenous cosmovision of the Abya Yala continent and are part of an ancestral health system of the native peoples. In the cosmovision of the Mayan peoples there is a holistic concept of health based on the fullness of life, in balance between human beings, mother earth, the cosmos and the whole environment. These paradigmatic elements are key to the "Buen Vivir" for a new civilizing era.  

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