Liviana Chagito is forty years old, she is from Buena Vista Litoral del San Juan, Chocó, Colombia, lives in Bahía Solano. She started by giving birth herself and assisting her mother who is also a midwife. Her eyes light up with pride as she affirms that she is Embera Dobidá and a single mother of six children.
The Embera Dobidá people are river people, almost all of them are in the department of Chocó, but they also live in the departments of Risaralda, Caldas and in the border area of Panama with Colombia. They preserve their native language that belongs to the Chocó linguistic family, which in turn is linked to the Arawak, Karib and Chibcha families, and is related to Waunan.
Liviana has a bright look, it is the light of a woman who found herself after much searching, her temperance and serenity are evident in her forms; for her “saving people is the most important thing in life. The association is important because we had ancestral knowledge but not western knowledge. How to manage a clean delivery, high-risk pregnancies, we can attend to those. That has helped me in my life, I saved my son's birth thanks to the association and Manuela who has taken us into account in the training.”
“The first blow warns”, he states serenely, then shares about his separation process:“I wanted to continue studying, grow academically and my husband was very macho, he didn't want me to improve myself. He did not want me to study, that I be someone in life.”
She is currently studying social sciences, she is coordinator of the network and an active leader in her community, her fight is that midwives are integrated in her municipality and provide them with biosafety elements:
“I have a great commitment to the area, we manage 10 communities and in all of them there are two or three midwives, I am going to motivate those of my age, because almost all the midwives we have are experts.”_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b -136bad5cf58d_
On indigenous childbirth, in particular from the Embera community of Chocó, he reports: “We don't give birth on a stretcher, we kneel down, we hold on to a rope. We do not touch, we realize the contraction when everything is dry. My mom knows of a plant that is to accelerate childbirth, when she attends she gives them her tomita. That helps to hurry up and also the cinnamon water. We don't use scissors or anything.”
She dreams that the association grows, that midwives are valued. She wants to leave the seed sown in her municipality, so that traditional midwifery continues to flourish, have supplies and that there is a niche* in her community. Regarding traditional midwifery, the relevance of the use of plants stands out:
“Plants are our medicines. There are many plants, it is seen depending on childbirth and woman.” Thanks to her knowledge of medicinal plants, she was able to save her daughter after a difficult labor.
Regarding her empowerment process, she highlights the collective dimension:“There are many women who are heads of households, who have defended ourselves, as I have suffered that I would like to help them. I have traveled all over Chocó and I have seen the need that vulnerable women in the countryside suffer, let us find another route so that this woman can survive, can be well with her children, that she thinks she can.”
With his calm and confident tone he expresses:“I speak of the right to equality, of gender equity, of violence against women. We are working on it in my municipality, there are women who do not have support, men believe that we should be housewives all the time. And that doesn't go with me. I want them to understand that if a woman has improved, better because now they are going to have two economic incomes and can have a better life, that is what I am aiming for.”
Liviana is one of the many midwives of ASOREDIPARCHOCÓ who inspires other women with her leadership, confesses that Manuela, Director of the association, is a reference for her, she wants all women to know that they can get ahead, that it is possible to live free of violence and overcome.