In Africa today, it makes sense to promote the use of culturally appropriate traditional home remedies for primary health care. 80% of the world's peoples still use traditional plant remedies. Far from dying out and being forgotten, they are becoming more accepted, and a source of pride to traditional users.
There is a tremendous amount of traditional knowledge and vast and exciting cultural- and bio-diversity.
The IMITHI project was started at the request of the Knysna Municipal Clinic, to help cope with unprecedented pressure on their present limited resources, and shortage of medications and personnel. There is also a problem emerging due to the over-use and inappropriate use of antibiotics, where both patients and their ailments no longer respond to these drugs.
The medications developed within the communities and for the use of the clinics use only plants which have been empirically tested and proven over thousands of years as both safe and effective. They are also long-lasting, stable and do not need refrigeration.

• Facilitate the use of a range of simple first aid remedies that are safe, cheap and effective, and demonstrate how these can be produced easily and cheaply , to be dispensed by the clinics and by the mobile clinic vans.
• Interact with the communities in which the clinics function to learn from them what traditional plant remedies are still widely used, and could safely and effectively be incorporated into the basic remedies to be made and used by the clinics.
• Encourage both the clinics themselves, their staff, as well as the communities to grow the plants used in these remedies as a way of involving and empowering them to do something about the health of the community in general. This could result in a possible source of income in the long term - either from selling the herbs themselves or the remedies made from them to the clinics as well as directly in the community.
• To encourage environmental awareness and the need to conserve the indigenous herbs by growing them, or entering into agreements with official local conservation bodies in order to collect certain plants legally and in a sustainable manner.
• Demonstrate to the medical authorities that this system is viable, sensible and to be encouraged. To get official sanction from the authorities for the clinics to continue this initiative in order for the staff to feel comfortable and safe using the remedies and documenting the results.
• Publish a series of small handbooks in diagrammatic form and in as many languages as is possible to be distributed to clinics and communities further afield. These would offer the basic remedies and the methods of making them with options to use those plants peculiarly appropriate to the region and culture to be served.

• Clinics are encouraged to set up meetings with small groups in each community. Each individual to be invited because of their known expertise and knowledge of traditional plant remedies.
• These meetings are informal but structured and each person is requested to bring with them those plants which they use most.
• The plants are laid out on a table in the centre of the group and each participant stands up, gives their name, family history if possible, place of birth and present address.
• They then introduce each of their plants with the name they know them by, describe how they are prepared and used, and the ailments or purposes for which they are used.
• All this is recorded on tape, videoed if possible, and written down. Nursing sisters and clinic staff give input and clarity
as to the ailments, while a botanist gives input as to the botanical name and the probable safety or otherwise of the particular plant.
• Although most sessions start off slowly with much shyness, they invariably develop into a convivial and fun filled time of interaction and learning.
  Making Ointment

Workshops are arranged by the clinic staff in a community hall, library or other meeting place. Clinic staff and volunteers, Clinic Committee members and interested people from the surrounding areas are encouraged to attend. Everyone is asked to bring two small glass bottles for the tincture and cough syrup. Empty film canisters are collected from and donated by Photo developing shops for the ointment.

The clinic or IMITHI demonstrator provides large pots, gas rings, and the basic ingredients such as cane spirit, brown sugar and petroleum jelly. Each person gets a sample of each of the remedies, and the clinics take the balance to dispense themselves. Participants are encouraged to grow the plants, roots and slips are given if possible. They are also encouraged to make the remedies for the clinics and for the community in general, for gain if they wish.

Where appropriate, participants are encouraged to start an IMITHI project in their area or on their farms. All present receive notes about the project and the methods and plants used

Contact has been made with researchers at University of Port Elizabeth and Port Elizabeth Technikon. Remedies presently used by the project: General purpose ointment; General purpose tincture; Cough and cold mixture (as a syrup and also without sugar for diabetics); Herbal distilled water (antiseptic); have been given to the main researchers at UPE.
Methods of preparation and bottling etc. are fully documented and illustrated in my book "First aid with Herbs" see literature list. This book has sold over 7000 copies over the past 12 years and I have never had a complaint from the many readers who have followed the advice re remedies and methods of preparation.
Fully-labelled small quantities of each IMITHI remedy have been given to UPE researchers. Separate samples made by the Knysna Clinic, Concordia community group, and at IMITHI workshops run by the herbarium were all presented for testing, as well as some older samples which had already been opened and used over varying periods. The samples will be tested initially for purity, ie: for the presence of harmful bacteria etc.
Further samples of plants, reported as being used for diabetes, will be examined by students working on diabetic plant remedies. Samples of anti-diarrhoeal plants will be made available to PE Technikon for testing against a range of pathogens causing diarrhoea.
Ongoing interaction and cooperation will see the remedies tested for a broader range of actions and for efficacy and stability. Results will determine what further action should be taken. If tests are satisfactory then the remedies will probably be presented for Fast-Track registration.
If results are good, the clinics and communities will be consulted and asked to identify a wider range of diseases or conditions which could be usefully treated with herbal remedies.
Discussions as to which plants to use and which would be safest and most effective would take place and methods of producing them trialled. The plants would again be pressed, identified correctly, and lodged in the herbarium. Make sure plant is not endangered and find alternative if it is, or try to access or encourage cultivated material.
These new remedies would then go through the same process as above at UPE and Technikon. If results show a need for changes in the process by which the remedies are made then this will be made with the advice and help of the UPE researchers.