Formacion y Capacitacion, Asociacion Civil

Formación y Capacitación (FOCA) is a Chiapas-based organization that works on gender, migration, social equity, and sexual and reproductive health from a human rights and gender-based approach.  Over twenty years it has built networks of and with local women leaders, and with recent MacArthur support helped strengthen ties between traditional and professional midwives in the state. With the current award, FOCA’s midwifery networks in three municipalities are building strategies to advocate for recognition of their work by health practitioners and officials, and for the inclusion of midwifery in the state health system.

Formación y Capacitación (FOCA) is a grassroots organization with extensive and longstanding ties with traditional midwives in Chiapas, and professional midwives on staff. The project seeks to strengthen three pilot models in which professional midwives provide maternal health services through the state health system. Through training traditional and professional midwives in leadership and advocacy, providing them with networking opportunities, and connecting them with local and state health authorities, FOCA addresses two needs: 1) the need to strengthen midwives’ ability to promote their own work in communities and with the health sector across the boundaries of "traditional" and "professional" midwives, and 2) the need to bolster new maternity centers’ chances of success. Intended outcomes are stronger networks of certified and traditional midwives in Chiapas and other southern Mexican states, and improved promotion of pilot models.