Northeast Amazon

The Northeast Amazon Ethnomedicine Program

The erosion of traditional medicine and culture has imparted a devastating effect on the self-sufficiency and health status of indigenous peoples worldwide. The acculturation of Amazonian peoples has been at best a difficult transition, with most tribes usually suffering a profound loss of cultural identity and social cohesion. Traditional knowledge and beliefs are no longer valued and passed down to younger generations. As a result, much of the knowledge and wisdom of the elders, including the medical knowledge of the shamans, is being irreplaceably lost at a rapid pace.

Health organizations have put a call forth over the past decade for initiatives that promote and integrate traditional health practices into the delivery of primary care services in indigenous communities. Several countries in Central and South America have adopted such programs; however, historically many have failed due to the significant distrust and knowledge gap that often exists between primary care health workers and traditional healers. Few, if any, of these initiatives have ever been evaluated for replicability across indigenous cultures.

ACT, in partnership with the principal primary care provider to tribal communities of the Suriname interior, strives to develop an informed, cost-effective and replicable model for the integration of traditional medicine that is potentially adaptable to other indigenous cultures of tropical America. The approach, in which tribal shamans operate and direct traditional medicine clinics built alongside primary care health outposts, contributes to health provision and retains indigenous peoples’ self-sufficiency and control of their own health and cultural destiny.

Tribal Medicine in the Suriname Rainforest

Health Provision in the Remote Interior of Suriname

The Program

Updates from the Field

For inquiries regarding this program, please contact Christopher Herndon M.D., Director of Ethnomedicine, Northeast Amazon Program.

ACT gratefully acknowledges the Conservation, Food & Health Foundation (Boston MA), Yale University (New Haven CT), World Bank (Washington DC) and private donors for their generous past and/or present support of this program.