The Women’s Association for Community Mental Health works with women in poor and marginalized communities contending with the effects of Salvador’s long civil war, and with two devastating earthquakes in 2001. Trained mental health workers facilitate meetings in which women participate in group dynamics, share experiences, and learn about basic human rights regarding healthcare, education, employment, housing, and violence against women. Parallel meetings are undertaken with the participants’s children.

AMUSAMECO has had particular success in developing women leaders, debunking taboos about psychology and mental health, and incorporating young women into their Coordinating Committee. In 2002 they will continue this work and focus especially on establishing the independence of longer-term participants as protagonists within their families and communities, expanding their work among other women, and making the organization more widely known in their communities.