Report from the first Latin-American CPN session in Barranquilla, Colombia

CPN Blog about the Latin-American Session

On the 30thof October we had our first Latin-American CPN session in Barranquilla, Colombia. It involved talks from the founder and co-chair of the CPN, Professor Dave Nicholls, Co-chair Alma Viviana Silva and member of CPN executive, Dr Aydee Robayo with a 30 minute Q & A session. 

Following these talks was a practical session where we produced a physio-zine on the day.As I mentioned in a previous post: “A zine is an underground publication with political messages without censorship. You can express yourself without the constraints of media” 

There were two essential activities needed in preparation for the workshop:

1.     Our practical session was inspired by the editorial published recently by our colleagues Filip Maric and Dave Nicholls.

Filip Maric & Dave Nicholls (2019) A call for a new environmental physiotherapy - An editorial, Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 35:10, 905-907, DOI:10.1080/09593985.2019.1632006

A few participants brought some handwritten or printed notes, reactions, thoughts or scribbles for the editorial. We discussed the editorial during the session with its authors.

2.     Inspired by the editorial, participants choose images from magazines.

The second part was magical. They created 5-6 zines in groups of 5 members from different Latin-American countries in each team. They learnt more about themselves in relation to their physiotherapy practice and environment through their zine creations.

The reflections at the end of the activity discussed how we should include ancestral knowledge in our profession. One example was about the "parteras", they have all the knowledge of the tribe or community about the way to deliver a baby and support the mother during this important time in life (childbirth). Example of this “parteras” stories: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22802296, https://www.amazon.com/Partera-Story-Midwife-Arbor-Paperbacks/dp/0472087126

Some groups talk about the high value of rivers in the local regional culture, you can see in this link Colombia has many rivers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_of_Colombia. We all (Colombians) have stories related to trips to the closest river. They discussed how it may give a way to interact with our patients in rural areas. 

In words of Prof Dave Nicholls “We need to bring the enchantment back to the profession.  Or perhaps bring an enchantment in that was never allowed to be there because of the western biomedical hegemony?”. All of the stories did indeed sound magical. The participants all agreed to include indigenous concepts of Pachamama related with love and belonging that maybe can guide us to think ecologically of the physiotherapy profession and may bring the enchantment back to the profession as Prof Nicholls mentioned.

The group wants to organise the second CPN Latin-American session in Peru next year (August), as unfortunately, there was very limited space in the room this time.  They are going to propose a special space for our group next year in Peru (for at least 70 people) because some people felt we “left them behind" as they couldn't participate this year.  The participants want to create a video with some of the non-spoken things that happened that day during the session (non-verbal language). These are some of the photos of the day and all physio-zines.