 Visitors since
May 3, 2009
web design degrees |
In partnership
with the
Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM)
Several varieties of
plants have physical healing properties. In several communities across rural Mozambique,
the Christian Council of Mozambique
is helping people to grow these plants.
Bill Butt is working with CCM
, a partner with the United Church of Canada. The links below
include a report and photos of the progress of this project.
CCM is collaborating with two associations of practitioners of
traditional medicine dedicated to better integration between
traditional medicine and ‘western’ medicine based on chemical
pharmaceutical treatments. CCM is in favour of this local meeting of
traditional and modern.
These all are crucial in the fight against AIDS and associated
diseases and infections. Here in a country where the government’s
budget for pharmaceuticals is only $1 per person per year, and 1 in
6 adults is HIV+, these plants are crucial – able to be grown locally,
inexpensive, and sustainable. Families of subsistence farmers
struggle in the best of times, and when someone in the family is
weak with AIDS, his or her labour is lost, and the family rapidly
becomes even more vulnerable and destitute.
Some of the plants and their healing properties are:
 | Peanuts and passion flower fight the insomnia which robs the
body of precious strength. |
| Periwinkle builds immunity, and fights urinary infections.
|
| Artemisia, like garlic too, fights malaria which so often
attacks those whose resistance has been weakened by AIDS. |
| Garlic also fights herpes and hypertension. |
CCM trains community volunteers in these uses. The typical course
runs two weeks. They learn how to tend the plants, how and when to
harvest flowers, seeds, leaves, roots–whatever is the plant’s
therapeutically active part. They learn how to prepare the
medicines: some become powders, others are syrups, still others are
lotions. They learn how to store them, in recycled jars or bottles
or clay pots. They learn how to administer the healing product to
affected families, who pay only what they can.
These fields are rural pharmaceutical factories, and the
volunteers’ houses are pharmacies. The project is headed by a nurse
and an agronomist. From CCM nursery fields, they take cuttings and
seedlings, to transplant to new pharmacy fields which they will
start in other communities.
See "Letter from Butts" for
more photos.
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You can help.
Funds raised will be used to:
|
Identify and collect local plants of
medicinal value. |
|
Set up demonstration gardens on
community land |
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Train local people in cultivation and
provide tools. |
|
Train them in harvesting plants and
preparation of medicinal products |
|
Train traditional practitioners
to better identify, understand and treat HIV/AIDS patients.
|
|
Produce radio broadcasts to inform
people about the project. |
Speakers/Programs
Members of the group that visited
Mozambique in 2008 are eager to share their experience.
Contact one in your area
to invite them to make a presentation
Click here for contact information. |
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