Northeast Amazon

Updates from the Field

April 1, 2002

• In July 2000, the Trio constructed a traditional medicine clinic adjacent to the Medische Zending health outpost in the village of Kwamalasamutu located deep in southwest Suriname close to the Brazilian border, a remote village accessible only by charter flight. The clinic, named Katamïimë Ëpipakoro, after an important medicinal plant valued by Trio shamans for the treatment of wounds, was inaugurated with a powerful ceremony lead by the chief of the tribe, shamans, apprentices and Medische Zending health care personnel. Two shamans from the Inga and Kofán tribes of Colombia were also present on the invitation of ACT to participate in the ceremony.
• Already into a year and a half into operation, the impact of this clinic has greatly exceeded the expectations of all involved parties: Katamïimë Ëpipakoro has received over 400 patients with several thousand patient-visits. The impact of this clinic has greatly exceeded the expectations of all involved parties. The elder shamans vigorously operate and direct the clinic’s operations. Patients have sought treatment from the shamans for a broad variety of conditions ranging from traumatic injuries to rheumatoid conditions to parasitic infections. The patient flow to the clinic has been consistently strong over the course of its implementation period.
• Even though the program is just in its nascent stages, there are tangible indications of mutual cooperation from the close interactions of the traditional healers and primary care providers in the village. The traditional healers and primary care providers in the village enjoy close interaction. With the technical assistance of Medische Zending indigenous health workers and ACT field personnel, the shamans and their apprentices have been trained in basic hygiene and preventive health practices. As a result, traditional healers routinely cleanse their hands with antiseptic soap before and after each patient and use isopropyl alcohol provided by the Medische Zending and ACT to disinfect wounds.
• Medische Zending health workers and circulating physicians refer patients to the traditional medical clinic for the treatment of several conditions, including leishmaniasis. Likewise, shamans obtain malaria smears for all patients presenting to the Katamïimë Ëpipakoro with fever and suspected malaria. The slides are subsequentially read by Medische Zending health workers. If positive for severe non-endemic forms of malaria, the shamans have been recommending patients seek additional consultation at the Medische Zending health outpost in addition to the botanical therapies they provide to the patient. Follow-up care of the patients is co-managed by both traditional healers and village health workers.
• In early August 2001, a traditional medical clinic was established in the second project site, the Trio village of Tepu in south-central Suriname. The clinic, named Kaapi Ëpipakoro after a medicinal plant used by Trio shamans to treat leishmaniasis, is staffed by three Trio shamans, including one female shaman. Since inception, Kaapi Ëpipakoro has received a consistent flow of patients, which, once adjusted for the smaller population of Tepu, is comparable to that of the traditional medical clinic at Kwamalasamutu.
• The Northeast Amazon Ethnomedicine Program was recently recognized by UNESCO/NUFFIC as a 2002 Best Practice for Indigenous Knowledge (go to UNESCO.org to find out more), and was cited by independent expert reviewers as an “extremely impressive example of integration between the two systems [of health].”

April 15, 2004

• ACT’s Northeast Amazon Ethnomedicine Program was selected as a winner of the 2003 World Bank Development Marketplace Global Competition [link to http://www.developmentmarketplace.org]. ACT Suriname Director of Ethnomedicine Dr. Christopher Herndon and Medische Zending Director Dr. Edward van Eer jointly presented the project with other finalists from countries across the world at the World Bank in Washington DC on December 3-4, 2003. The recognition was notable not only for its high selectivity but also as the first time that a Suriname-based initiative has entered and won this competition for innovative ideas that improve healthcare, education, and/or the environment in developing countries.
• Building upon the ongoing successes in Kwamalasamutu and Tepu, in late 2004 and early 2005, two new traditional medicine clinics were constructed and opened in the Wayana village of Apetina and the Saramaccan Maroon village of Kajana in southern Suriname. The Maroons comprise six tribes of descendants of African slaves in Suriname that escaped the brutal conditions of colonial plantations by fleeing deep into the interior forests. Even today, their society structures closely around retained West African tribal principles and ancestral ideology. The two culturally distant indigenous communities represent a further opportunity to examine the replicability of our model. Although Maroon and Wayana tribal healers share an impressive knowledge of medicinal plants, their healing rituals and belief systems are quite distinct; Maroon ethnomedicine more closely resembles the folk medicine and herbalism of West African tribes.