What are ....

anamed Seminars in Natural Medicine?

anamed runs week-long training workshops in Africa for people who work in the field of health. They include nurses, pharmacists and doctors, traditional herbalist healers, community workers and other local professional workers.

The programme includes:

• developing together a definition of Natural Medicine.
• identifying healing plants.
• the cultivation of medicinal plants, making a medicinal garden, with contours and leguminous hedges.
• teaching about tropical diseases, e.g. diarrhoea, malaria.
• in depth teaching on Artemisia annua, and its use to treat malaria and to strengthen the immune system of AIDS patients. (The picture shows some participants of a seminar in Kisumu, Kenya, inspecting an artemisia plant.)
• practical sessions in which participants prepare teas, oils, ointments and other medicines from herbs.
• hygiene and accurate dosages.
• presentations by participants of their work, and the plants they use.
• frank discussions about the complementary roles of health workers and healers, and how they can collaborate. Presentation and discussion of a "Code of Conduct" for practitioners of Natural Medicine.
• the construction of a solar oven - used for drying herbs.
• soap making, waste disposal, water purification and other broader aspects of health.
• the Biblical basis for Natural Medicine.
• Participants are expected to practise what they have learnt, and themselves to conduct seminars with others, in order that their new knowledge and skills are more widely shared. Seminars are usually held for three successive years, so that participants can consolidate their knowledge.

The aim of anamed seminars is that the physical, spiritual, mental and economic health of communities is improved, by:

• empowering people by enabling them to develop new skills that build on their traditional knowledge, e.g. in making good medicines from well-known plants and treating patients more effectively.
• affirming the wealth in the local environment, by using locally available plants, and establishing gardens of medicinal plants.
• broadening horizons, by helping people to understand all the factors that influence health.
• developing local networks and structures that facilitate person-centred and community-centred health care.

Would you like to organise an anamed seminar in your locality?

Would like to attend an anamed seminar in Africa?

Would you like to attend an anamed seminar in England (in English) / Germany (in German)?

Read reports of some seminars held from 2004 to 2007

Programme for a typical 6 day seminar in Natural Medicine