Minnesota native at forefront of empowering Chilean women

“A quarter-century ago in the shantytowns of Santiago, Chile, health care was considered an out-of-reach privilege rather than a basic right. During Augusto Pinochets regime, when thousands of Chileans were being murdered or disappeared, making sure that poor people had access to inoculations and annual physical exams wasnt a high priority.

This was the atmosphere in which Minnesota native Karen Anderson founded EPES, a Spanish acronym for Popular Education in Health, after being inspired to go to Santiago by working with Chilean exiles in New York. “There were no toilets, and the homes were very modest homes, made of scraps of metal and wood, with toxic industrial waste and garbage dumps,” said Anderson, who grew up in Owatonna, Minn.”

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