Please stand up, Manuela Ramos.

Poor women in Peru need the low-cost, effective health care services delivered by nongovernmental organizations (NGO), especially in the context of reduced government expenditure on health. The feminist NGO Movimiento Manuela Ramos is helping to implement a preventive health care system for 500 women and their families in San Juan de Miraflores, 25 miles from Lima, Peru. The health program was established in 1987 to provide a comprehensive promotional program including training for fifteen health promoters, forty neighborhood health representatives, and eleven midwives, who attend 80% of births in the area of Pamplona Alta, as well as six health center staff. The center has a broad view of health care and has provided family planning services on request to hundreds of women and couples. Personnel understand the need to involve men in family planning. The center's close connections with the community are attracting increasing numbers of women to the facility. The movement will continue working with other women's networks to widen its impact beyond health.