The President

PROMETRA

ERICK VIDJIN’ AGNIH GBODOSSOU, MD

President, PROMETRA International

Dr. Gbodossou is an Ob-Gyn and psychiatrist, with a joint degree in medicine and pharmacy from the University of Dakar in Senegal. Now a Senegalese citizen, Dr. Gbodossou was born in Benin in the Atlantic coastal town of Grand Popo. He is married with four children.

Dr. Gbodossou served as an Ob-Gyn at the CHU hospital in Dakar in the late 1970s and was later appointed Chief Inspector of Medicine in Senegal. He now maintains a private practice in Dakar along with his duties as President of PROMETRA.

Dr. Gbodossou traces his traditional medicine roots back to childhood. He was chosen at the age of two to be trained and initiated in the forest as a healer under the direction of his grandfather and a team of elders. He often tells stories of how he learned medicine from the forest and its residents. Once he spent time watching three baby birds in their nest. Two grew up and flew away, but the third remained. He climbed the tree to see what was wrong and saw that its eyes were swollen shut with infection. Over the next week, he watched as the mother and father birds brought a leaf to the nest that they chewed up and placed on the infected eyes. After a week the baby bird was well and flew away. Dr. Gbodossou now uses this effective plant in his practice for conjunctivitis, and he considers the birds his teachers.

While in Senegal, Dr. Gbodossou began working with traditional healers from the Sereer ethnic group. It soon became clear that their valuable knowledge was in danger of disappearing forever. The elders who were the repository of the orally transmitted tradition and indigenous knowledge were dying, and not enough young people were taking up the practice to keep it alive. Determined to preserve and resuscitate the ancient healing arts, Dr. Gbodossou in 1976 founded an organization in Senegal called PROMETRA – The Association for the Promotion of Traditional Medicine. He later established a healing and research center in the town of Fatick, 150 km southeast of Dakar, the Center for Experimental Traditional Medicine (CEMETRA). From its humble beginnings with a few healers in Senegal, PROMETRA now has chapters in 21 countries and collaborates with traditional healers in Africa, United States, Brazil and the Pacific Islands.

Dr. Gbodossou and the PROMETRA network also collaborates with western-trained health and medical researchers in Africa, Europe and America, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the Global Health Council in Washington DC, NOVIB in the Netherlands, the International Medical Exchange in South Africa, the Institute of Medical Anthropology in Vienna, Austria. His greatest desire is for traditional and modern western medicine to work hand in hand to help maintain and restore the health of the peoples of Africa – and of the world.

Dr. Gbodossou has authored numerous publications on traditional medicine and was named one of 2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 21^st Century by the International Bibliographical Centre of Cambridge, England. He has been the recipient of several international awards and honors including Knight of the National Order of the Lion of Senegal, a USAID Certificate of Distinction awarded by the US Ambassador to Senegal, the Certificate of Distinction of the Association of Black Psychiatrists of America, the Certificate of Distinction of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia and medals of honor from the governments of South Africa and Uganda.