Published
2024-06-20
Section
Community Voices
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Gwynne Guzzeau, Jayne Carvelli-Sheehan, Eli Ingraham, Janice Murphy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
All work in IJPS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Copyright of content published in IJPS belongs to the author(s).
How to Cite
Spiritual Courage and the Power of Partnership: How One Coastal Community is Changing Women's Health Care
Gwynne Guzzeau
Helping Our Women
Jayne Carvelli-Sheehan
Helping Our Women
Eli Ingraham
Janice Murphy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/ijps.v11i1.5981
Keywords: health care, women’s health, health equity, Cape Cod women, Helping our Women, women’s health care, rural health care, coastal communities, health transit services, community partnerships
Abstract
Helping Our Women (HOW), a small 501(c)3 nonprofit organization serving women living with chronic or serious health conditions in the rural coastal region of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, US, has been operating as a partnership model for thirty years. This article reveals how Riane Eisler’s “right mindset” was present in the community culture that fostered HOW’s formation and is still present in its organizational DNA and explores how economically challenged rural communities value caring as essential work through their generosity and altruism. Rick Mauer’s Levels of Resistance model is used as a tool to explain some of the challenges of actualizing Eisler’s partnership ideal. Eisler’s foundational emphasis on mutual respect, accountability, spiritual courage, and equity is recognized as the through-line of continuous evolution and community resilience.
