Facing the Emergency
First Phase
Popular Education in Health (EPES)

Popular Education in Health (EPES) started in 1982 in Santiago, Chile, as part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile's efforts to promote the organization and community participation in public health, a program that since 1983 expanded to include the city of and area near to Concepción. Over the past twenty-five years, EPES has grown from a small, emergency-response team to a leader of systematic community education and mobilization to improve health services and awareness.  EPES' team of educators and trainers work in the poorest communities to organize the economic, political, and socially disenfranchised and marginalized, who are primarily women, persons living with HIV, and victims of family violence.  EPES seeks to inform and promote a life with dignity among the poorest of the poor. EPES provides community training, guidance, advocacy, and support to help community health groups seeking enforcement of their rights and also works with local churches to provide health information to the public at large. 

In recent weeks, EPES has been focused on the health and well being of the people of Chile following the earthquake. With their background in emergency-response and their networks of health monitors and churches, EPES has developed five goals as they respond to the needs.

Goal #1:  To support the staff team of EPES Concepción

• Has sent two support teams from EPES Santiago to the Concepción Center to help with daily demands and to help clean the Center
• By taking food, water, cleaning supplies, lanterns, etc., to the members of the team and to visit them in their homes to make sure that they have what they need and to deliver their salaries and other financial support
• Has worked with the Coordinator of the Center in Concepción, a medical doctor, to develop priorities for immediate actions:
  1. Provision of emergency medications
  2. Development of flyers regarding water purification and the prevention of illnesses and distribution to the neighbors who visit EPES for water
  3. Community first aid kits for the EPES-trained health monitors to use
  4. Visits to the neighborhoods where EPES works to meet with the health monitors to diagnose the situation
• By ensuring the provision of water to the 300 neighbors of the Center from the well on the EPES property
• By purchasing and installing a generator
• By offering a space for meetings and spaces for lodging for the Inter-Ecclesiastical Emergency Committee and others

Goal #2:   To support and accompany the EPES health monitors, families, neighbors, and community organizations in Hualpen and Talcahuano

• By regular visits to the health monitors and other leaders of community organizations in affected areas
• By offering diagnostics and treatment of basic health needs including medications, mental health support, and others
• By distributing community first aid kits to the health monitors
• By distributing informative health flyers on water purification, illness prevention, and mental health
• By meeting with leaders to agree on how to distribute the aid that comes through the Inter-Ecclesiastical Emergency Committee
• By supporting the team through networking and the development of action proposals to be presented and promoted to local and regional government authorities.

Goal #3:   To provide water through the EPES Concepción Center to the community of Hualpen

• By using the generator (see goal 1) to run the water pump
• By gathering the local leaders in conversations regarding the supply of water, filtration processes, and the organization of distribution of drinking water, etc.
• By having a presence at the Center to help with needs as they arise and to increase the visibility of EPES and the available services
• By participating in training regarding the use of the water filtration kit and preparing a report regarding the use of equipment donated to EPES.

Goal #4:  To participate in the Inter-Ecclesiastical Emergency Committee of 2010, a grouping of Chilean churches (both Historic and Pentecostal denominations) and ecumenical service organizations

• By assisting and supporting the diagnostic process carried out by the Lutheran World Federation
• By coordinating with other members of the committee to organize and distribute foodstuffs and health kits, ensuring record-keeping regarding donations
• By being accountable in the name of the Inter-Ecclesiastical Committee for the channeling and distribution of international aid from the churches for the 8th region of Bio Bio.

Goal #5:  To organize a strategy for communication to inform the Friends of EPES about the ongoing situation and our work to face the emergency

• By taking pictures and writing regular updates to send to partner churches
• By writing stories with information regarding the earthquake
• By maintaining correspondence with the partners regarding the emergency.

EPES educational materials on drinking water treatment, trauma, and children and the earthquake are available in Spanish upon request.