[Mitai-announce] Fw: At Highest Risk

[Elan Pavlov]

The MIT Western Hemisphere Project presents a showing of the film

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*"At Highest Risk"*
*followed by a** discussion with Professor Dolores Acevedo-Garcia*
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*Co-sponsored by the Latino Cultural Center, MIT Traditional Medicine
Society, and MIT Amnesty International*
*Tuesday December 2nd, 7:30pm*
*Location: 6-120*


*At Highest Risk 42 min
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*Just as the rivers of the Andes mountains twist and coil in a curious maze,
so does the grave situation of Peruvian women's health care*
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*Within the past decade, the Andean women in Peru have faced a massive
sterilization campaign, exorbitant fines for homebirths, remnants of a
deadly civil war, and the second highest maternal death rate in South
America. Yet, as the have for centuries, the Quechua and Aymara people are
fighting to preserve their traditions, beliefs and integrity*
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*Through the compelling story of one Andean woman, Judyth Aguero Vega, we
see the horrors and triumphs of Peru's volatile health care situation.
Inside a small adobe kitchen, Elsa Romero-Murrado, a midwife in the rural
town of Ccapacmarca, takes us through rarely seen birthing ceremonies. Down
the dirt path, her neighbor Judyth, 27, shares her fears of birth as she
bestrides the lines of modern and traditional medicine. Their town sits
seven hours from the nearest hospital. Cerlia Mendoza, president of the
Mother's Club, testifies to a list of 200 women who were bribed by doctors
to undergo sterilization*
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*At Highest Risk** winds through the beauty of Andean people's spirituality
and their mysterious gift of self-preservation throughout centuries of
adversity. As part of Fullbright grant, the crew spent one year researching
and filming in some of the most inaccessible regions of the Peruvian Andes
This is one of the most intimate looks at the reproductive health care yet
filmed in a developing country*

*Professor Acevedo* * * *Professor Dolores Acevedo-Garcia is a Martin 
Luther King Jr. visiting professor at MIT for this academic year, and an 
associated professor at Harvard school of Public Health. She has a 
doctoral degree in public policy and demography; and her research 
interests include the effect of social determinants (e.g. residential 
segregation, immigrant integration) on health disparities, especially 
along racial and ethnic lines, and the role of non-health policies (e.g. 
housing policies, immigrant policies) in reducing those disparities*