PROJECT MARGARITA TODAY.

Project Margarita is now on its second year of implementation. Relentless efforts of the Aetas and the project partners have yielded positive results such as a reduction in the incidence of diseases that are preventable and the education and training of indigenous health human resources. In the next five years, the project proponents look forward to the establishment of a health service delivery system, functioning and dispensing health care services, and an over-all improvement of the health situation with a community-wide acquisition of health care knowledge, skills, attitudes and values.

The project has successfully hurdled the first challenges of Phase I. Achievements include comprehensive demographic profile and data on the tribes, and the identification of community health needs prioritized according to the urgency and availability of resources.

Education of Aeta scholars to become midwives was also a significant, integral achievement at this stage. Once the scholars graduate, they will be required to render direct health care service to their respective communities throughout their entire life. Paid by government, these scholars will be the backbone of the people managed health care delivery system.  They will assist in identifying principal health needs in their communities and come up with a curriculum for the training program of community health volunteers, and finally to share their acquired knowledge to these volunteers.

In 2004, the project entered Phase II. Presently there are two scholars reviewing for the board and another two scholars in the first year of studies. Midwifery is a two-year course and a another year allotted for review to take the professional midwifery exam. The project will continue to screen potential scholars to health care schools.

Upon reintegration with their tribal community, the scholars are expected to train other health care volunteers to signal the actual set up of the people-managed primary health care system delivery. Upon graduation of the health volunteers, assigning 20 households to a volunteer finalizes the system. The system is also intended to be networked with mainstream health care delivery, while continuing to receive support from sponsor institutions.

During its final phase of consolidation of gains towards sustainability, Project Margarita aims to introduce sustainable support components like health saving schemes, health infrastructure for a supply of medicines and alternative remedies (including practices of the Aetas), micro-financial for livelihood projects, and potable water resources to encourage settled economic communities. Likewise, the training, skills building and support for these alternative sources of livelihood will enable the Aetas to make use of their ancestral lands. A community-based literacy program is also in the drawing boards.