Where Life Persists: Local Wisdom from Hidalgo
Por Acento. Acción local:
Di RAMONA, A.C.
It starts every Monday at 9 a.m., right when Di RAMONA’s inboxes open and the messages start coming in:
Someone who is not sure whether she is pregnant. Someone else who does not know what to do after discovering sores on her genitals. Someone who has already decided to terminate her pregnancy, but does not know how or with whom. Another person paralyzed by fear from getting a HIV rapid test after suffering sexual violence. Another person who has already had an abortion but lives in such an isolated area that accessing medical care in the event of a complication seems nearly impossible.
From this side of the screen – and often from a chair in a hospital waiting room – we learned something no manual taught us: answers rarely come from protocols or institutions. Nor do they come entirely from national organizations or social movements.
The answers come from the people we accompany, in their stories, in the networks that are woven when everything else fails.
For us, that is local wisdom. It is more than knowledge: it is a living practice. It means knowing what to say when someone is afraid, recognizing when silence is more comforting than words, knowing the paths – legal, medical, community-based – that actually work in a given area, and forging new ones when necessary. It is also about entering the system to push it forward, hold it accountable, and leave a mark beyond the cases we directly support.
In many ways, it is a form of resistance against systems sustained by stigma, punishment, and guilt as mechanisms for limiting autonomy.
Because in places like Hidalgo, where the right to abortion exists only on paper and HIV treatment is institutionalized, the gap between the law and everyday life is profound. And in that context, local wisdom is not optional: it is what makes exercising rights possible.
What Practice Has Taught Us
At Di RAMONA, we do not start with answers. We start with questions: How can we accompany without intruding? How can we stand by decisions that are not our own? How can we forge paths where none exist?
Over time, we came to understand that the most valuable knowledge is not external; it lies in the experiences of the people we accompany. Each story teaches something different. It also challenges us, forcing us to examine our own stigmas and construct responses that did not exist before.
We learned that fear does not dissipate with information alone; it needs presence and care. That autonomy is not just a discourse: it’s a practice-built step by step, often through doubt and contradiction. The healthcare system can be a space of violence, but also a place where resistance exists that deserves support, and that navigating it is, in itself, a collective learning experience.
Local wisdom emerges in the details: in how we explain processes, in how we translate technical terms, in how we stand by our decisions when everyone around us insists on denying them. It also emerges in what we adjust and unlearn, because accompanying people is not about replicating formulas: it is about listening to what the territory is telling us, even when it’s uncomfortable.
What We Have Built Starting in The Territory
None of the things we have done started as a “project”, in the traditional sense. Everything has been based on urgency. It all arose out of a sense of urgency. It grew out of people’s lack of access to clear information. Out of hospitals that denied services, and out of contexts where stigma outweighs the law.
This is how we began building: a telephone hotline that informs but also provides supports; accompaniment that continues until the person is safe and cared for; citizen monitoring processes to understand what really happens within health services; and bridges with professionals and decision-makers willing to do things differently.
But above all, we built something more difficult to measure: trust.
Trust that there are other ways of doing things. Trust that no one is completely alone. Trust that making decisions about one’s own body is possible, even in adverse circumstances.
Also, a solution is generating that trust, although it doesn’t always fit into traditional metrics.
Accompaniment That Enhances Without Replacing
We have not been alone on this journey. But neither have we been replaced. And that matters. Acento’s accompaniment has not been that of someone who believes they are arriving with answers; rather, it’s been that of someone who recognizes that those answers already exist within the community. It’s been a space to pause and reflect on what we do– something difficult when living in a constant state of urgency– to strengthen processes without losing their roots, and to name to what we sensed, even if we did not always know how to explain it.
Too often, the risk of external “support” is erasing what already works: imposing timelines, languages, priorities, or even agendas. Here, it has been different. The approach has been to sustain, trust, and amplify without substituting. In that gesture, there is also a form of wisdom.
What Continues Beating
If we’ve learned anything, it’s that solutions aren’t static: they transform and adapt. But one thing remains constant is the certainty that we as territories hold the knowledge.
Even in adverse contexts, our communities find ways to care for each other, support one another, and resist. And we also demand that these responses be sustained: with resources, with trust, and with decisions that put power in the hands of those of us who are on the ground every day.
This text is an invitation to take a closer look at those ways of doing things that are rarely visible, almost never remunerated, yet sustain what is essential. It is an invitation to recognize that here -in the everyday, in the collective, and at a local level– there are answers that deserve to be heard and funded.
2025 Annual Report creates a space for these experiences to engage in dialogue with others. It aims to help us understand that local wisdom is not isolated, but rather part of a broader network of practices through which, from different territories, we are imagining and building other possible futures.
We speak from Hidalgo, from what we have seen, endured, and learned. And perhaps, by reading each other across territories, we can continue expanding upon what we already know, even if we sometimes forget to name it: that answers also born here, at the local level.
