Intercultural Dialogue in Health: A Strategy to Preserve Medical Knowledge and Practices about Maternal and Child Health of Afro-Caucan Communities

In Cauca (Colombia), high maternal and child mortality and morbidity in afro-caucan communities is a problem insufficiently treated by the health system and reflects the same situation of vulnerability of the Afro maternal and child population in Colombia. This situation leads to the need of renewing the model of primary health care based on an intercultural approach promoting traditional medicine in these communities. Afro-Colombian communities assume that their cultural identity and health knowledge derived from their cultural worldview (traditional medicine and ancestral knowledge) are transverse to the different programs created by state health system, for this reason is considered that is imperative to build an intercultural dialogue to preserve their traditional knowledge as a way of all-including participation within the health system. The purpose of recognizing traditional medicine and ancient knowledge in maternal and child health based on an intercultural approach, allows these communities recover their cultural and ethnic identity, and at the same time, it is a strategy that would reduce indices of maternal and child morbidity and mortality in the Cauca.