Qualitative Documentation of Improved Health. Beyond quantitative gains in health surmised in the previous paragraph, qualitative gains merit discussion using two VHBs and several individual narratives as examples. Xxxx xx Xxxxxx is a rural village bank of 14 women in their 8th cycle. By happenstance and great luck, this was one of the villages selected at random for a final evaluation visit, having also been visited during the Midterm. The group is led by Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxx, an indigenous woman of perhaps 45 years old who has four children under twelve. In the interim since the Midterm, Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx has found employment in the city of San Marcos while continuing her representational functions in the VHB, and has led the group with great energy to negotiate with the mayor of San Marcos on a number of village concerns. (In fact, just the day previously she had been in the mayor’s office lobbying.) Because of these initiatives, a road has been opened to the village (!), and a budget has been prepared for the construction of a Q. 2.4 million water system (!). These are huge gains for an indigenous community led by an indigenous woman. Though one must credit Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx with the personality and drive to have carried these initiatives through, Xxxxxxxxx tells everyone she got her start as a leader of the village health bank, and it was with the VHB that she learned the power of organization and representation. Xxxxxxxxx is not alone in this village: several other women were articulate in contributing to the health talk. El Jardín is an urban VHB composed of 12 women, recently completing their 5th cycle. Results in El Jardín are not so dramatic—group leadership does not have the dynamism of Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx— but the changes could be equally profound. In a module on women’s health, this group was strongly affected by the talk on self-esteem, “negotiating equality” with spouses, defending the rights of abused women in the neighborhood, and related issues. Said one woman: “if I think about it [women’s rights] much, I will start to cry.” Another said: “we need to stand up for one another when one of us is being abused by her husband.” In post-event interviews, four women said this was the first time such a subject had ever been talked about; also that sessions on vaginal cancer, detection of breast cancer, menopause and other women’s health issues were similarly new and changing their lives. Life stories that came out of individual interviews—selected at random by the evaluator—are the following ‘un-cued’ comme...
