Minga brings health information to women of the Amazon

They travel miles and days by canoe, winding down Amazon River waterways that are infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes and exotic insects.  Mostly women, they paddle through an environment that hides all types of predators, both human and animal, just to deliver a letter to the local mailman. The authors of these letters live along the huge snaking maze of the Peruvian Amazon, where indigenous communities play a vital role in the writing and producing of a radio show called, “Welcome Health.”  The show, which is aired twice daily, broadcasting through out the vast jungles of Peru, is part of a series of community-based projects facilitated by Minga, a non-profit organization formed in 1998. Their aim was to find ways to convey information to women and children about health, safe sex and prevention of diseases as well as tips on what to do through alternative methods of communication. Eliana Elias is founder and executive director of Minga. “Since the beginning we wanted to organize a project they may build bridges.