Action for Natural Medicine

anamed runs seminars, develops projects and

distributes books and materials

that enable people in the Tropics to become more self-reliant

with regard to their health

and social and economic well-being.

1. Anamed promotes the protection and cultivation of healing plants in the tropics, and the skilled preparation of and treatment with natural medicines.

Anamed, therefore:

 conducts week-long training seminars for health workers from state, NGO and church initiatives.

 teaches agriculturalists, health workers and pastors to establish gardens of healing plants for demonstration, and fields for cultivation.

 develops reliable and reproducible recipes for making natural medicines from locally available healing plants.

 supports the establishment of pharmacies that specialise in locally produced natural medicines that are inexpensive and easy to use.

 encourages existing pharmacies to stock and promote natural medicines.

 promotes the production of Natural Medicines by mission hospitals and clinics.

 undertakes research into alternative treatments for malaria, e.g. by promoting the cultivation and use of Artemisia annua anamed
(see anamed Malaria Programme).

 publishes and distributes posters, reports, books and seeds.

2. Anamed supports people in the Tropics in becoming more active in the care of the environment.

Anamed, therefore:

 gives instruction in the appropriate disposal of waste.

 teaches people how to collect, conserve and purify water.

• promotes the planting of trees, especially trees that increase soil fertility and provide food or medicine.

 encourages the use of solar energy and fuel efficient stoves.

 proposes alternatives to the use of chemical fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides.

 encourages churches to be involved in the protection of the environment.

3. Anamed supports people in the tropics to become more self-reliant, and opposes processes of so-called development that have more to do with maintaining the social and economic supremacy of the North.

Anamed, therefore:

 supports people in tropical countries to cultivate their own medicinal plants and from them to produce their own medicines.

• fights every threat to this right by resisting the patenting of traditional knowledge by multi-national corporations. (see African Governments, please...)

 researches and campaigns against the manufacture and distribution of soaps and creams that contain mercury (see Mercury Soap Campaign).

 opposes the dumping of unhealthy or dangerous products, e.g. sugar drinks, out-dated medicines.

 researches and promotes the utilisation of water hyacinth, and thereby supports people in creating value out of a biological catastrophe (see Water Hyacinth).

4. Anamed encourages local and international cooperation in pursuing these principles.

Anamed, therefore:

 involves pharmacists, doctors, health care workers, healers and traditional mid-wives together in the same seminars, as well as being totally ecumenical in involving people from all church backgrounds and Faiths, and then encourages participants to establish the means whereby they can continue to collaborate.

 is developing an international network for the exchange of knowledge about healing plants and natural medicines.