oil and communit y health 501
This was the beginning of breaking the balance between our ancestors and
nature. First, the Spanish searched our lands for gold and silver. Our ancestors
were forced to work as slaves digging gold and silver out of the earth. Then the
English came. Instead of gold, they wanted rubber. They made slaves of us to
take rubber from our lands. After this, the oil companies came. They did the
same thing.
We know the oil companies are destroying our health. This is why our
health promoters decided to study the pollution and how it affects us. We
want to work together for a better economic, political, and cultural situation.
The health promoters learned that people in oil-polluted communities have
more sickness than in unpolluted communities. Women in these communities
suffer from many miscarriages. Children suffer from malnutrition, and often
die at an early age. Many people have skin diseases that do not go away.
(To learn more about the health problems caused by oil, see pages 506 to 507.)
This is just some of what they learned. After their study, they produced a
book called Cultures Bathed in Oil so other people could learn from the work
they had done.
First we formed a
team, adding people
who had technical
and medical
knowledge to people
from our community
organizations.
Our team was made up of 6 people:
3 health promoters (2 who worked
in communities and 1 who worked in
a health laboratory), and 3 health
technicians (a doctor, a biochemist,
and a medical technician).
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012