Tanga AIDS working group - Traditional Healers in Tanzania

Introduction: David Scheinman is one of the innovative people working on the Tanga AIDS working group (TAWG).  He works with the traditional healers community in Tanzania, using their knowledge to develop alternate treatments for diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other ailments common to their region. The video can be viewed in its entirety or via shorter clips sorted along the main themes (blue underlined) which emerged during the debriefing.  This debriefing was organized by the Knowledge and Learning Group as part of AFTQK's knowledge sharing and learning services. Reinhard Woytek conducted this de-briefing on May 16^th, 2001.

Tanga AIDS working group  (1:23:06 hr), download MP3 audio, MP3 #2, Additional Resources

1. Background and genesis of Tanga AIDS working group (8:49 min)
2. Increased awareness - for both AIDS and the working group; ".more people with AIDS are farming, growing food, they're being productive.donors are now starting to realize that there are some natural remedies that can work.statistically 25% of all our medicines in the west come from plants.and for every doctor there are 100 traditional healers." (2:42 min)

TAWG intricacies and activities

3. Organization of the working group - "we're a registered legal entity.with our offices in the regional referral hospital.and we're governed by an elected board of directors." (2:28 min)
4. Activities of the group - various activities have been undertaken besides treatment such as supporting health education and local theater groups  (3:20 min)
5. Impact of activities - is difficult to measure, but through the use of ".(foreign exchange) students.(we found) that thousands of people visited our centers and had changed their behavior patterns." (3:10 min)

Interfacing with the private sector and other communities

6. The private sector - collaboration and benefit sharing which has been a ".very positive experience for us.providing us with more benefits than we could have ever dreamed."  (15:04 min)
1. Shaman pharmaceutical company (click here for their website) -  ".focus is making pharmaceuticals from the rain forest.they have a commitment to helping people in developing countries improve health care." (7:14 min)
2. Tibotech biotech company (click here for their website) - ".if they come out with a marketable drug (based on our contributions).our group of NGO's.would share 2% of the gross proceeds." (7:08 min)
7. Community to community exchange - ".people living with AIDS.how do I live, how do I feed myself, how do I take care of myself, how do I get medical care." (4:13 min) 

Challenges and obstacles

8. Inherent limiting factors - such as the plants.  ".how are we going to get them.if we're going to be treating a lot more people." (2:23 min)
9. Scientific validation - ".we want the recipe, we want the methodology, 1 2 3, how do you do it." (1:35 min)
10. Challenges and obstacles  (8:10 min)
1. Institute for Traditional Medicine - in Darussalam.  "You would think that we would be natural partners but we weren't.we never would have started the TAWG had that institution been supportive"  (5:35 min)
2. Funding - ".has always been a problem.  Donors didn't want to pay for treatment." (2:16 min)  
11. Organization of the healer/ herbalist group - distinguishing the competent vs. non-competent healers from within the community.  (4:09 min)
12. Traditional healers vs. the professional medical community - ".the public sector health personnel have to respect and believe in the traditional practitioners.you have to treat them as peers.trust and mutual respect" is key (4:42 min)

In the Future - next steps for the Bank and for TAWG

13. Steps for the Bank to take
1. Role of a facilitator - ".in bringing healers and conventionally trained western professionals.and continue supporting community to community exchanges, we could make progress." (3:40 min) 
2. Role as a knowledge broker - by helping us to ".share lessons learned by other groups, what were the do's and the don'ts." as well as being the broker for organizations to develop new partnerships (1:03 min)
3. Disseminating information - ".and how to forge linkages with healers." to help deal with the efficacy issue (2:28 min)
14.  Next steps for Tanga AIDS group - validation and follow up on the community to community exchanges (1:38 min)
15. Advice - to people embarking on similar endeavors.  "Don't take no for an answer.there are people out there who are willing to support you." (4:03 min)

 

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Additional Resources