The Centro Popular de Apoyo y Formacion Para La Salud (CEPAFOS- The Popular Center for Support and Training in Health) is building a therapeutic garden of medicinal plants, and we need your support!

Local traditional knowledge of medicinal plants was once well established in the indigenous communities of Oaxaca, but serious threats such as land dispossession, tourism, mega-projects, and the building of industrial corridors threaten this ancient way of life. Currently, there is a great need to protect and preserve the cultural wisdom of traditional societies in the region.

For the last 20 years, CEPAFOS has served as a support center to sustain and advance this knowledge. Medicinal plants are readily available from the local environment, and with the support of CEPAFOS, local communities are reclaiming this knowledge. By building a therapeutic garden of medicinal plants, traditional healing practices can be further protected, understood and amplified. This will not only ensure that the wisdom of the past is brought to the present, but will also protect the future of indigenous cultures of the region, and benefit the health of all in the local community.

Currently, in the clinic and in the communities we serve, we use over 70 herbal preparations made from native plants. The garden will be used to train health workers to identify and safely use various preparations for medicinal purposes, and to assist health workers in cultivating medicinal gardens in their respective communities. The garden will serve as a source of plants to make medicines and treatments including tinctures, tonics, syrups, soaps and pomades, which are made at the clinic as well as in the “botiquines” (kitchens or laboratories for preparing traditional medicines) run by groups of health promoters in their local communities.