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From Kivu:
"INDIGENOUS WOMEN HEALERS FORMED GROUPS TO PRACTICE TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IN OAXACA (MEXICO)
After bitter struggles with official associations of physicians, traditional medicine people, mostly women, finally were able to organize joint meetings in which they shared their experiences and set up plans for collaboration. As a direct result, indigenous women benefitted immensely. Their involvement has been a key factor in cataloguing the plants, herbs, and practices, and in promoting the conservation and availability of curative products and practices. With the support of the National Indigenist Institute, UNICEF, and NGOs, an overall health program has been established. Recognized medicine people and healers train interested indigenous villagers as health promoters through courses and workshops, focussing on the recovery of communal knowledge about medicinal plants and traditional healing practices. The status of indigenous women has been enhanced through the creation of a council of traditional medicine where their knowledge is recognized, and through the opening of community clinics. Not only can they make wide use of their traditional knowledge in medicine, but also the exercise of their practice has been greatly improved."
I think this is a fantastic study, as indigenous healers have access to a modality of curing diseases that has almost been completely forgotten. Dismissed by many as superstition and witchcraft, plant medicine is experiencing a resurgence in the 21st century because it addresses the cause of the disease, an imbalance in the body or a lack of health, and gives the body the tools it needs to address that unhealthy situation.
Contrasted with 'western' medicine, which prescribes pain-killers and symptom supressing pills that merely reduce the fealing of dis-ease but don't cure the disease, causing contagious people to infect more as they proceed with their daily lives before they are cured. In the cases where they actually treat the illness with antibiotics, this opens up pandora's box as bacteria and other pathogens develop resistance to the medicine and become virtually untreatable.
It is very important that more cultures follow the lead of Mexico and hte women of Oaxaca who are training interested neighbors on these important healing plants that give the body the tools it needs to cure itself. By networking these women are refining their knowledge, and by sharing it they're keeping it alive for future generations.
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