Traditional Medicine in Kenya Project

Herbal practitioner selecting some of drug samples for annalysis.

TRADITIONAL HEALTHCARE INTEGRATION NETWORK.
(THIN)
WHO WE ARE.

THIN is a countrywide non-governmental, non-profit, non-political organisation registered in December 2001, under legal Administrative framework of Non-Governmental organisations Act, of 1990, section 10, registration number op218/051/9581/2148 under Health criteria.

To improve livelihoods, through participatory generation and dissemination and application of knowledge in healthcare.

THIN has its activities in Kenya, where we have ever-present health and development challenges which are higher than anywhere in the developed countries of the world, and with no sufficient manpower and capacity to address these challenges.
A number of challenges face the provision of healthcare services for approximately 20 million Kenyans, the majority of whom live in rural areas. Yet health is simply the manifestation of development. Health provision and care are central in the overall development of the people. Health covers all aspects of life and is not merely a question of tackling medical problems alone. And, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not possible to operate health and development policies separately in a way that is effective.

THIN recognises that there are important applied problems in the health management of human tropical diseases, food crops, the pests and vectors of livestock diseases, environmental pollution and the conservation and utilisation of biodiversity and other natural resources. And at the same time it also recognises that in several crucial cases, these applied problems cannot be satisfactorily approached without further basic knowledge and the involvement of people. People have the right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their healthcare.

In the same reflection, THIN believes that, first, increased participation and efficiency in medical and health services delivery in the country can be attained at a lowered cost through the deliberate pattern of increasingly integrating (blending) traditional and cultural health and medical practices with modern and cross-cutting issues of science and technology aimed at solutions of national health and development problems.

There’s increasing appreciation of the advantages of integrating science and technology with traditional knowledge practices to yield mutually beneficial results from development projects. It is customary and common to analyse situations and plan actions for a society in terms of Human and material services.
However, the importance of value systems is too often neglected in planning for social and economic developments, for example, the improper implementations of technology has led to the alienation of healthcare mechanisms, while value systems in the societies concerned have been neglected. There is a great need for more humanitarian approach to health research and healthcare delivery aimed at the association of research with thorough consideration of the social- economic environment.

Moreover through community-based systems of healthcare delivery and promoting interprofesional education, training and research at all levals, the country can be assured of better and sustainable health and development; and, any combination of these measures might provide a more stable and higher health and protection outcomes to many people. Indeed actions in the health field can be instrumental in bringing about reform in other social and economic and political fields, and a more equitable distribution of resources, leading to improvement in health and other sectors. This is the upward thrust of human development.

THIN is targeting Communities and individuals as vehicles of change in the war against disease, hunger and poverty; through a framework of participation and finding ways of utilizing indigenous and cultural institutions, knowledge, physical resources and technology for local level and national development.

Consequently, THIN has set itself a double mission. First, THIN is committed to bringing together communities who are the customers and clients and selected partners to undertake general and interprofesinal high-quality education, training and research in several critical aspects of health which would lead to the design of novel methods for the prevention and control of many disease conditions, pests and vectors and poverty reduction in a long range within an acceptable social, cultural and environmental framework. That is, THIN organisation has integrated but functional programmes designed in partnership participation of local people supporting empowerment and economical development programs using healthcare delivery strategies as a positive receptacle for them.

Secondly, it has set itself the task of carrying out high level technical and scientific training of young gifted scientists and senior technicians from Kenya and other developing countries in the field of healthcare and related areas. It was the vision of THIN founders that such research training in a development field of international concern would foster the growth of a young scientific community in Kenya and other developing countries within an appropriate intellectual framework and relevance.

THINS research and training priorities focuses on clarifying linkages between traditional and cultural practices and heritages, conservation and poverty. The THINS integrated programmes contribute to the development and transfer of diseases prevention, control, management and help to design appropriate technologies polices, pathways and strategies in delivery of effective human, crops, livestock, environmental services and products in different productive systems for employment creation, incomes and profits while promoting the traditional bonds of solidarity that have existed for centuries and giving science a meaning.

To identify the most appropriate technology for each programme and to find the best ways to integrate and deliver these programmes to the mainstream health infrastructure, THIN is undertaking extensive ‘’Health Systems Research’’, (H.S.R). A structure that THIN has adopted includes social, economic and behavioural research. Through explanations in the knowledge base found in linguistic and cognitive science ensures eliciting knowledge from a wide range of individuals which provides more exciting approaches to combining traditional knowledge and modern science for each programme under local circumstances and trying to make most out of people, other resources and technologies while keeping an open eye throughout.

This general and interprofessional research-training entails gradually strengthening the capacity of the healthcare delivery system to meet the people’s needs, by progressively introducing and expanding through it specific programmes based on appropriate technologies, and, mobilizing people to apply these technologies as much as they can. Through this approach, THIN is training health-workers and practitioners in close relationships with the jobs they do, by strengthening, supporting, and improving skills and technologies based on various local resources and management systems relatively unknown to ‘’Formal Health Research’’. Much of this endeavour means working together in partnership with people in other sectors on a selective basis, whenever and wherever it is needed; including at the grassroots level that until provide a range of products and services applicable across communities in the mutitude of environments

Priority areas for THIN activities include:
o Participatory approaches to knowledge generation and use
o Indigenous technical knowledge
o Knowledge and information pathways
o Dissemination materials for rural communities
o Alternative models for knowledge dissemination
o Rural resource centres (telecentres)

Our strategy has been planned on four pillars:
o Reducing vulnerability
o Improving access to resources
o Responding to appropriate information, knowledge and technologies
o Making markets work for the poor who need help and that help has not come. Many times the poor have the volume market but they do not know how to put a therapeutic agent or drug into a flea collar or livestock dip and they do not have the registration expertise or marketing connections we do.

The approach THIN has taken is of open strategy. For each target problem, THIN is exploring several lines of study which hold promise as novel avenues for health promotion and management and social –economic development. While not eschewing short-term strategies for medical and disease control, It has not felt it compelling to devote its best endeavours to fire-fighting efforts in order to stem the flushes of disease outbreaks. Much of these endeavours means working together with people in other sectors on a selective basis. THINS mandate is to find new knowledge that will lead us to long-range and socially, economically, environmental and technically acceptable health management and development.

Indeed, these target health programmes that THIN has chosen for its priority attack are all challenges and issues that have already received consider able national, regional and international attention. Many of these have been the subject of practical control and eradication programmes on an extensive scale over the last several decades. If these were simple direct methods for the management and control of these serious dilemmas facing mankind and the increasing resistance to chemical treatment by disease causing pathogens, they would have been found in that time and put into operation.

Nevertheless, because it’s preponderant goal in increasing small-holder and agricultural production and better human health, through the prevention, control and management of disease and vectors and pests, and, It’s training of communities, young scientists and technologist who would perpetrate these activities, the THINS objectives are necessary complimentary to those of existing international medical, agricultural research centres, the vector control organisations (national, regional and international) and other applied institutes in the developing countries.
THIN is committed to supporting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) of the United Nations by increasing human health and poverty reduction.

Vision

THINS Vision is health and prosperity throughout Kenya and beyond; a vision that recognises the basic needs of health and as urgent priority as well as aspirations to equitable sharing of the worlds wealth. We stand to lose much more than the battle for health if we do not do something urgently.

Goal

Empowering rural communities, simple citizens, health professionals and all concerned with knowledge and technology for improved decision making.

Core values in our operations include:
Commitment, Integrity, Efficiency, Transparency, Accountability, Flexibility, Quality and Local ownership.

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