Acupressure and Singing in Bolivia - how did it come about?

Welcome everybody.

This is the first in a series of blogs which will document a trip I made to Bolivia from 13 December 2006 to 4 January 2007, where I carried out some workshops in 'canto curativo' or healing singing, with various groups from prisoners to indigenous midwives. In this first entry, I explain how the trip came about......

For those of you who are not aware, there is a Latin America Week every Spring in Ireland, coordinated by the Latin America Solidarity Centre http://www.lasc.ie/. During Latin America week 2006, a journalist and activist from Bolivia, Tania Quiroz, was invited to speak at the main conference of the week. In Bolivia she is involved with a well known social movement, called 'Coordinadora de Agua y Defensa de la Vida', which was instrumental in organising the protests against water privatisation there. She is also involved in a women's cooperative, which is working on a project which aims to 'rehumanise' birthing practices in Bolivia, and to revive native birthing practices.

At the Latin America Week conference in Dublin, Tania met the Donegal based herbalist and activist Judith Hoad. There and then, Judith offered to come to Bolivia that winter to share her knowledge of acupressure and other alternative medicine to assist with the work on enpowering women to have natural births.When I found out about the project, I wanted to get involved so I suggested coming along to help intepreting and also to run workshops in 'healing through the voice'. the cooperative in Bolivia were keen so I set off to join Judith, Tania and fellow Irish girl Cearbhuil, who was interpreting on the project.

Tania Quiroz at Latin America Week Conference, April 2006.