African NGOs FINDING THE ANSWERS TO THE AIDS
EPIDEMIC -
The meeting participants were challenged to assist the Ford
Foundation in reviewing their current work in the area of HIV/AIDS
throughout Africa, assess its comparative advantage as a fund or and
make suggestions that would help guide its future strategic
planning. (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 2001)
SCIENCE OF THE SPIRITS: FA
-
It is a system of geomancy which deals
with 256 spirits of humans allowing for revelations or clairvoyance
by the oracle regarding an individual, a group of individuals or a
society. Sixteen major spirits are represented by symbols.
(Author: Erick V. A. Gbodossou, M.D.)
INVOLVEMENT OF TRADITIONAL HEALERS AS IEC IN THE PREVENTION OF
HIV/AIDS
PROMETRA
believes that collaboration between modern and traditional
medicine remains the only solution in resolving health-related
problems which as sail the African people. (Author:
Erick V. A. Gbodossou, M.D.)
Traditional Medicine: Possible Role in the Future of Global
Health - Herbal based therapies, once used only in traditional
medical systems are now recommended for the treatment of several
degenerative disorders and chronic conditions where modern
pharmaceutical agents have proved inadequate. The
acceptance of these techniques as standard health-care options
will have tremendous impact in the cost of health-care
interventions, preventive medicine and self healing. (Authors:
Erick V. A. Gbodossou, M.D., and Maurice M. Iwu, M.Pharm, Ph.D.)
AIDS in Africa: Scenarios for the Future -
As the world continues to watch the AIDS epidemic
wreck havoc throughout the African continent, we realize that a
valuable resource – that of traditional medicine and its
practitioners – is markedly underutilized. It is often
said that for a health education message to be understood and
health seeking behavior to be positively modified two things are
required:
the right message and the right messenger.
(Authors: Erick V. A. Gbodossou, M.D., Virginia Davis Floyd,
M.D., M.P.H., and Charles Ibnou Katy, M.A.)
UNAIDS - AIDS Scenarios in AFRICA
Defining The Role Of Religion And
Spirituality in Medical Rehabilitation In the Lives of Persons
With Disabilities -
In all cultures across the world, religion is a
concept which is only applied by and to mankind. It is one of
the basic components of the elements of which man is made.
According to African philosophy, the human being is a W H O L E
composed schematically of five elements. (Author:
Erick V. A. Gbodossou, M.D.)
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Traditional Medicine – Growing Needs and Potential -
Populations throughout Africa, Asia and Latin
America use traditional medicine (TM) to help meet their primary
health care needs. As well as being accessible and affordable,
TM is also often part of a wider belief system, and considered
integral to everyday life and well-being. Meanwhile, in
Australia, Europe and North America, “complementary and
alternative medicine” (CAM)1 is increasingly used in parallel to
allopathic medicine, particularly for treating and managing
chronic disease. (World Health Organization, Geneva, May
2002)
Working with traditional health practitioners
- ‘Western’ or ‘modern’ medicine can reduce levels of HIV in the body and treat HIV-related opportunistic infections, but many people with HIV have no access to even the most basic western medicines. It is estimated that in many developing countries, particularly in the rural areas, four out of every five people visit traditional health practitioners and use traditional treatments.
(AIDS Actions)
Route of Slaves -
It was on the proposal of Haiti and the African countries, the initiators of this project, that the
General Conference of UNESCO approved, at its 27th session in 1993, the implementation of The Slave Route project . (27 C/Resolution 3.13). The project was officially launched in 1994 in Ouidah, Benin. While the concept of a route reflects the dynamics of the movement of peoples, civilizations and cultures, that of slave focuses not on the universal phenomenon of slavery but, specifically and explicitly, on the transatlantic, Indian Ocean and Mediterranean slave trades.
(UNESCO Newsletter No. 1 - September 2000);
http://webworld.unesco.org/goree/
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
-
Combating
HIV/AIDS -
Experience of the Tanga AIDS Working
Group in Tanzania. (The World Bank Group)
Africa and the Economy of Tradition - A Background
Paper,
Graham Dutfield -
The
resilience and adaptability of the economy of tradition has enabled
hundreds of millions of people past and present to live worthwhile
lives. This is now much better recognised than before.
From the 1980s, traditional rural
societies began to gain broader respect for their cultural
richness, sophisticated natural resource management expertise, and for
their agricultural and health-related knowledge.
Traditional Healers Boost Primary Health Care,
Itai Madamombe - Reaching Patients Missed by Modern
Medicine, From African Renewal, Vol. 19 #4, Page 10, January 2006.
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