Accelerating Indigenous Aeta Women’s Health Awareness
Veronica Esposo Ramirez
ABSTRACT
This research paper examines the capabilities, barriers, and the collaborative work that accelerate indigenous Aeta women’s health awareness. Specifically, it has the following objectives: to describe how indigenous Aeta women demonstrate their capabilities in responding to their own and their family’s health needs; identify the barriers to indigenous Aeta women’s health awareness; and analyze how collaborative work among individuals, families and groups accelerate indigenous Aeta women’s health with minimal mobilizing intervention from philanthropic entities outside their communities.
The research study found that the barriers to the acceleration of indigenous Aeta women’s health development is the lack of health awareness. The basic needs of indigenous Aeta women and their families were partially addressed through the collaborative efforts among the donors, instructors, beneficiaries and the Esposo-Ramirez Family Social Responsibility (ERZ) community development enablers by providing water, light, sanitation, health and support for education.
Although the Aeta women rely heavily on herbal plants for their health needs, access to government medical facilities should be considered. Over the past decades, the use of herbal medicine has increased in more than 80% usage worldwide. The Aeta women can be trained to collaborate in systematic gathering and preservation of herbal plants. This is not only a great contribution to the field of medicine and pharmacy, but can also benefit the Aeta women from economic inclusion.
