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On the Long Road: Burundi
By Alexandra Douglas and Dr. Alexia NibonaA Community Peace and Health Model
On the Long Road: DRC
By Alexandra Douglas and Zawadi Nikuze
FWA’s Philosophy
The Friends Women’s Association’s work is basedon the following philosophy and principles:
1. Health is a human right. No person should be denied healthcare because of gender or economic status.
2. Health, at the individual and community level, is not just the absence of physical disease, but the whole wellbeing of body, mind, and spirit.
3. Every person and community has the capacity to heal and lead a positive life. Sometimes healing requires psychosocial accompaniment to help people reencounter their own inner capacity to heal from violence and trauma. Other times it requires on-going medical treatment and support.
4. Overall health disparities are caused by underlying structural violence and inequalities, which are also the seeds of greater instability and conflict. Therefore, efforts to heal must address these large-scale social forces at both the individual and community level.
5. Health is fundamentally connected to peace. Where there is not health, there is no peace. Efforts to provide quality, whole-being healthcare and peacebuilding must happen simultaneously.
6. Women’s needs must be emphasized in both healthcare and peacebuilding projects in order
to ensure that the systematic exclusion of women is not continued.