Published in July of July, 2010, WHO’s Global Policy Recommendation states that, “Globally, approximately one half of the population lives in rural areas, but less than 38% of the nurses and less than 25% of the physicians work there. ”  This 79 page comprehensive study makes a convincing, evidence-based argument in favor of models like Tia’s.

“This imbalance is common to almost all countries and poses a major challenge to the nationwide provision of health services. Its impact, however, is most severe in low income countries. There are two reasons for this. One is that many of these countries already suffer from acute shortages of health workers – in all areas. The other is that the proportion of the population living in rural regions tends to be greater in poorer countries than in rich ones.”

This is not the only study where the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends training Community Health Workers that are lay people to make up the deficiency.  Tia’s Promotoras (Community Health Workers) serve  rural Mexico where health care is scarce and is the best and most cost effective way to bring these services to the poor in remote areas.  We thank the WHO for their ground breaking research validating our model!

Empowered women become the building blocks for higher standards of living for their families and their communities. Through education programs like Tia’s, investing in women can produce gains in GDP growth.  Multiple studies published in just the last year by the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations, Save the Children and the World Health Organization reinforce the cost effectiveness of projects that focus on women partly because they have the broadest reaching results.

Women-led approached to development improve health, economic and quality of life outcomes for everyone, especially children.  Though Tia does not influence our villages or impose any gender bias on who to choose as Health Workers, so far, they have all chosen women.

Tia empowers women to become instruments in solving long-term challenges in their villages. By enabling women to be their own instruments of change, they become the mechanisms of poverty eradication through community leadership and development.