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Timeline / Renewing Native Ways / 1968: Government trains midwives for remote villages

1968: Government trains midwives for remote villages

Congress establishes the Alaska Community Health Aide Program to train health workers for remote villages and to serve in larger towns, at a ratio of 1 worker per 300 people. While the program is directed to the entire population of Alaska, most participants are Native women, who traditionally care for women during childbirth, or who come from families where women provide the health care.

Theme
Federal-Tribal Relations, Medicine Ways
Region
Arctic, Northwest Coast, Subarctic

First Alaska community health aide class. Left to right: Herman Moonin, Mary Wassillie, Mary Nikolai, Dr. Carolyn Brown, Anne Jackson, and Jennie Erickson.

Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration