EAPSEC history

1985 - Responding to rampant disease and extreme poverty among Guatemalan refugees who had fled to southern Mexico to escape genocidal repression, five Mexican health promoters form the Equipo de Apoyo en Salud y Educación Comunitaria (EAPSEC, Team for the Support of Community Health and Education). EAPSEC creates a network of health promoters to work in the refugee camps, teaching community members basic first aid, showing them how to cure the most common illnesses, and explaining how to prevent future diseases by changing the conditions in which they live. As they succeed in improving conditions among the refugees, EAPSEC recognizes the need to extend their work to poor indigenous communities in Chiapas that suffer from comparable levels of poverty, malnutrition and disease.

1989 – Partners In Health begins working with EAPSEC, providing financial and medical support.

1994 – The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) leads an armed uprising in Chiapas, demanding an end to economic and social inequality and political repression of the poor indigenous population. The Mexican government sends troops to crush the rebellion. A precarious ceasefire is eventually negotiated, but not before more than 200 people have been killed. EAPSEC continues its efforts to train and support health promoters in communities that are now even more isolated from health care and other services than before.

1995 – The Mexican government and the EZLN sign an agreement to work towards peace, but indigenous poor people in Chiapas continue to suffer from killings and abductions at the hands of Mexican Army troops, federal police and paramilitary organizations.

2004 – With help from PIH, EAPSEC constructs, equips and opens a new clinic in the town of Amatán in the Northern region of Chiapas.

2005 – Hurricane Stan strikes Chiapas with torrential rains, triggering floods and mudslides that destroy villages and roads, driving thousands of people from their homes and leaving them cut off from food, clean water, and basic medical care. EAPSEC responds to the crisis by opening emergency clinics in two of the hardest hit communities, Belisario Dominguez and Honduras.