Our
Beginnings
From
humble beginnings to a triumphant milestone:ten years! Women's Health in Women's
Hands Community Health Center enters the new millennium with renewed energy and
a singular vision for the future of healthcare for women.
Nineteen
eighty-nine marked the start of a concept that would change
women's community healthcare across the Greater Toronto Area.
Women's Health in Women's Hands (WHIWH) challenged the idea
that medicine and clinical treatment equaled healthcare. We
took a new approach to meet the needs of an often-overlooked
population of women: Black women, women of colour, women with
disabilities; women who are immigrants, refugees, older or
young. This diverse group of women shares a common problem:
accessing healthcare that meets their particular needs.
WHIWH
uses an interdisciplinary holistic approach to meet the healthcare
needs of women. We recognize that there are many factors that
determine how a woman seeks and receives medical care. And
we aim to address those ‘determinants of health’
in our programs by providing care for the mind, body and spirit
and breaking down social barriers to health.
Women's
Health in Women's Hands looks at the whole woman and how different
factors such as poverty, immigration status, racism, sexism,
violence and disability can affect her health. These factors
- known as the determinants of health - have a significant
effect on how women seek and receive healthcare.
Our work
was filled with struggle: the struggle to bring together the
different needs and values of different women in a positive
space. And the struggle to work with some founding members
who did not recognize these factors as being important to
women's health. We wrestled with our own - and sometimes conflicting
- ideas about how best to create a place that gave women the
information they need to make informed decisions. And how
to include the women we serve in the development of our health
promotion programs. Our internal disagreement about the effect
of racism and classism on women's health led to a three-day
sit-in by staff members in 1993.
Women
in the community showed their support by bringing food, blankets and friendship.
This strengthened our resolve to continue to fight to include these issues for
women as part of their healthcare.
We
survived this tense period of uncertainty about funding, difficult staff-board
relations, staff and board turnover and a basic difference of opinion about what
women's healthcare means. But the difficult times led to the gradual transformation
of Women's Health in Women's Hands to a place where board, staff and women in
the community work together to build a strong Centre.
Taking
Another Look
We have struggled as women and women of colour to survive
in spite of the negative expectations that we have encountered. Uncertain funding
and society's general lack of understanding about how we work - and even why we
exist - have hampered our progress to some degree. But we continue.
Through
our advocacy work on behalf of women, we continue to gain recognition on local,
national and international fronts as we move forward with a positive outlook about
holistic healthcare for our priority populations.
Our
vision is a firm belief that health promotion is the best way to reach women and
help each other gain better health. The only way this can be achieved is by women
taking control of their own lives.
