ACUPUNCTURE WITHOUT BORDERS
NEWS FROM AWB TRAINING MISSIONS
carried out by Acupuncture Without Borders Centers
Since its
beginnings in 1992, Acupuncture Without Borders has already performed a
considerable number of teaching missions:
o Haiti (AWB Switzerland)
o From 1996 to 2000, 11 nun nurses were trained in acupuncture in collaboration with the Help Haiti Association. Unfortunately the situation that has reigned in recent years in Haiti has prevented us from following up this work.
o Burkina Faso (AWB Switzerland)
o From 2000 to 2002, together with “Rossignol-Vandoeuvres”, an association providing mutual support in Burkina, and AGMA (Geneva Medical Acupuncture Association), a first group of nurses was trained for the dispensaries of the Ouahigouya region in the north of the country.
Also in Burkina and Ouahigouya, a second group of nurses was trained from 2005 to 2006. A special follow-up session with the accent on clinical aspects was held in 2007.
These courses once again brought out a veritable passion for acupuncture on the part of the students, who experience it as a completely new form of medicine. They followed the course assiduously, asking appropriate and judicious questions and learned to practise with enthusiasm.
This second training course in Burkina Faso led to the noteworthy event of acupuncture becoming officially incorporated into the medical system of Yatenga province! Given that there is still no country-wide recognition of acupuncture it was a real first to be endorsed by the health authorities there.
The health authorities agreed to put a building dedicated to acupuncture at our disposal, to officially integrate the acupuncture unit in a department of the Regional Hospital Centre (CHR) and to sign an agreement between the CHR and AWB Switzerland.
o In October 2008, a third training course has started in Ouahigouya, and in February 2008, former students, now full-fledged acupuncturists, have started training to become trainers.
o Mali (AWB Belgium)
o
A training course
began in Kati in 2006, continued during 2007 and concluded with a fourth session
in 2008. The students were made up of 25 nurses from 15
dispensaries throughout Mali and 5 midwives from the Kati maternity hospital.
A Malian acupuncturist physician agreed to monitor the course, supervising the
students’ work and practice during the periods between the sessions and after
the last session.
o Mauritania (AWB Switzerland)
A training
course was begun at Atar in January 2007 in conjunction with teachers of the
SFERE College (Société Française d'Etudes et de Recherches en Energétique) of La
Tour d'Aigues, near Aix-en-Provence in southern France.
This first course aroused great enthusiasm among the students, who were rapidly
able to put what they learned into practice and observe a marked improvement in
their patients following treatment. The courses were attended diligently, and
more and more patients put their names down for treatment.
The students were pleased to be given needles and moxa sticks at the end of the
session. They are now in a position to treat a number of common conditions:
rheumatism, sciatica, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhoea, etc.
The teachers are hoping that it will be possible to open an acupuncture unit at
the Atar Hospital in the medium term.
This training was interrupted due to the recent events in Mauritania.
o Cameroon (AWB Switzerland)
An agreement concerning the training of healthcare personnel of bush dispensaries was finalized in January 2007 with the Ministry of Health in Yaoundé.
The Physician Inspector General of the General Inspectorate of the Administrative Services at the Public Health Ministry and the chief of the Cooperation Division of the Ministry of Health showed great interest in the objectives of Acupuncture Without Borders, seeing a solution to their concerns for the development of better quality of care on the part of Health Service medical and para-medical personnel. An important factor was the complementarity of traditional Chinese acupuncture with Western medicine and “traditional” practice, as well as its great availability to the most needy patients, above all those depending on bush dispensaries.
Commencement of activities is planned for 2008 or 2009.
Following recent changes in the government of Cameroon, activities programmed for 2008 or 2009 had to be postponed.
o Senegal (AWB Switzerland)
An
agreement was signed in April 2007 for the training
of nurses from the dispensaries of the Guinguinéo healthcare district, Fatick
medical region, some 250 km from Dakar.
On the sidelines of this meeting, an information session on acupuncture was
organized by the Chief Medical Officer of the District of Guinguineo for male
and female nurses and midwives of the district. They were highly enthusiastic
about the prospect of following this course, and asked many questions about
needles, their action on the body’s energies, relationships with Western
medicine, and so on.
The participants in this training, which has started in April 2008, include 24 nurses (male and female) and midwives. The four training sessions should be completed in November 2009.
o Bolivia (AWB Switzerland, in partnership with : Acupuntura para el mundo, Spain)
An
agreement was signed with the health authorities in November 2007 to train
healthcare personnel in the rural areas of the Santa Cruz region. Due to recent
events, the first training session, initially to start in November 2008, had to
be postponed.
o China (AWB Switzerland)
o Following a preliminary fact-finding trip (August 2007) to Sichuan province (Dzogchen Monastery, Kham area), and in partnership with Dorje Association (an NGO dedicated to improving the health care situation in Western Sichuan), a training course was held in November 2008 at the Shanghai Insight Ancient Chinese Medicine Training Center. This course was intended to train the trainers who will carry out AWB Switzerland's future training missions among Chinese ethnic minorities. Participants in this training included 22 Chinese and 5 North-Americans, all of them acupuncture doctors who have committed to work two weeks a year, for three years, as volunteers for AWB Switzerland or Dorje's future missions.
Further missions are in the course of preparation, with the accent, needless to say, always on the most disadvantaged countries.