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About Culture & Medicine Foundation

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For over three decades, the Culture & Medicine Foundation has worked from a simple and urgent idea: putting people at the center of medicine.

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Despite technological advances, medical practice still fails in something essential: recognizing and treating human suffering with empathy. The traditional model focuses on disease but often ignores factors that decisively shape health: inequality, racism, poverty, corruption, environmental crises, and violence. In Northeast Brazil and in various regions of the world, these conditions also cause illness, and profoundly so.

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It is in this context that the foundation operates. Our work seeks to expand access to healthcare for marginalized populations, promote diversity and social justice, and involve communities themselves in caring for their well-being. The proposal is direct: to strengthen autonomy, dignity, and active participation in care.

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Based on field research, the organization develops and implements alternative care models that address stigmas and generate concrete impact, especially where the traditional system fails to reach.​​

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Our mission

To promote access to health, equity, and social justice through research, community action, and collaboration.

A TEAM OF THOUGHT LEADERS

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C & M Foundation´s medical & social science professionals have served on an array of highly esteemed National and International Scientific Steering Committees, providing expert guidance health policy and setting governmental priorities, including:

 

  • Brazilian Ministry of Health

  • National Program for Control of Endemic Diseases (PNUD);

  • Brazilian Ministry of Health, Special AIDS Projects;

  • Expert Scientific Steering Committee of National Program on the Prevention of STDs/AIDS;

  • World Health Organization´s Expert Scientific Steering Committee on Maternal & Child Health,
    Geneva, Switzerland.

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Our Operation

The foundation's work is guided by three principles: working directly with excluded communities, critically analyzing the barriers that prevent dignified care, and creating innovative solutions to expand access to health and reduce inequalities.

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OUR GLOBAL ACADEMIC PARTNERS & SUPPORT

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C & M Foundation--and its researchers--have an equally admirable track record collaborating with global philanthropic foundations to improve the health of Brazil´s most vulnerable individuals, families and communities, including:

 

  • W.K Kellogg Foundation;

  • People-to-People Foundation (Project HOPE);

  • Child Survival Project;

  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation;

  • Edna MacConnell Clark Foundation;

  • John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation;

  • David Rockefeller Foundation;

  • Pathfinder of Brazil;

  • Brazilian Association of Family-POMMAR;

  • Family Health International (FHI);

  • John Snow do Brazil, lnc.;

  • PROMUNDO- Global Project for Orphans.

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C & M Foundation is sealing NEW institutional partnerships, including:

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  • UNILAB International Integration Lusofonia- Afro-Brazilian University, Freedom Campus Redenção Ceará;

  • Gonzaga Mota District Hospital Barra do Ceará

  • The Center of the Developing Child, Harvard University

Our Mission

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ACADEMICS SYMPOSIUMS

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C & M Foundation researchers have ministered hundreds of trendsetting courses, seminars, workshops, talks, lectures, invited symposiums and Key Note Addresses around the world, including:

 

  • "Gender, Moral Reputation & AIDS Among Poor Women in NE Brazil" at the Symposium: 
    "Promoting Health at the Margins in Latin America: Perspectives from the Field" at 
         Harvard University Medical School in Boston, MA. in 1997;
     

  • Symposium Culture & Humanization of Care at the VII Latin American Congress of Social Sciences & Health, Angra dos Reis, Brazil in 2003;
     

  • "Disease-Illness Process: An Anthropological Approach" at the International Forum for Social Sciences and Health (IFSSH) World Congress: Health Challenges of the Third Millennium in Istanbul, Turkey in 2005;
     

  • “Visions and Voices from Heaven: Perceptual Plasticity and Recovery from Infant Death Trauma in NE Brazil” in the session Local Responses to Trauma & PTSD: Therapeutic Mechanisms sponsored by the Society for Psychological Anthropology at the 110th Annual American Anthropology Meetings in Montreal, QB, Canada in 2010-- examples of our global research impact In 2022-23;
     

  • In 1997, the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the City of São Paulo´s Secretary of Health invited C & M Foundation´s Dr. Nations to present the lecture: "Prevention of STDs/AIDS among Low-Literacy Populations: Contribution of Anthropology" at EducAIDS 97, the 1st National Meeting of the Association of Educators for AIDS Prevention & Treatment. C & M Foundation has a 30-year history and star-studded team of creative visionaries passionate about empowering lay people--ordinary folks, respected healers and community activists -- with life-saving health knowledge and autonomy-enhancing self-help

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OUR QUEST FOR EXCELLENCE

We take pride in our creative imagination & sassy solutions to social and health challenges. And we are grateful for the global recognition of our "Quest for Excellence!"

Our C & M Foundation researchers and community partners were invited to present our impact data at numerous national and global conferences; we published results in the respected medical journal, Tropical Doctor.

 

In 1996. the USAID/AIDSCAP/Family Health International awardedC & M Foundation its " Outstanding Achievement in HIV/AIDS Prevention Certificate of Award."

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In 1998, the Brazilian Ministry of Health awarded C & M Foundation First Place in its "Creativity in AIDS/HIV Educational Materials Award" for our fortuneteller´s Love Cards.

 

​​In 2010 , Dr. Nations was honored as a "Friend of the Public Maternity Hospital in Messejana (HDGMM)" for her contribution to promoting fathers' inclusion in birth.

 

In 2015 , DADDY's EMBRACE was selected as a Grand Challenges Bold Idea by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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In 2025, DADDY's EMBRACE is finalist in Good Start Challenge

Council and Management

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Executive Board

  • Marilyn Kay Nations — President Director

  • Fátima Luna Pinheiro Landim — Vice-President
    CV: https://lattes.cnpq.br/6712500180663076

 

Board of Trustees

  • Rosendo Freitas de Amorim — Member of the Board of Trustees

  • Rondon de Freitas Lopes — Member of the Board of Trustees

  • Rafaele Teixeira Borges — Member of the Board of Trustees

Fiscal Council

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Full Members:

  • Andréa Stopiglia Guedes Braide — Full Member

  • Roxane Mangueira Sales — Full Member

  • Aetamira Lúcia Ribeiro — Full Member

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Alternate Members:

  • David Barroso de Oliveira — Alternate Member

  • Flávio Nogueira da Costa — Alternate Member

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