The People’s Declaration for Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Health (TCIH) calls for respectful collaboration between traditional, complementary and biomedical practices to achieve a person-centered and holistic approach to health. The universal declaration was launched in 2022 and already has over 300 supporting organizations from around the world. You can read more about the initiative here.
As a member of this initiative, in July 2023 we participated in the dialogue with the World Health Organization (WHO), as part of the consultative process for the preparation of the new global strategy for Traditional, Complementary and Integrative HEALTH. The new strategy will be launched in 2024, essentially continuing and expanding the current 2014 – 2023 strategy couched under the narrower “WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy”.
This week’s event was also an important step in the preparation of the upcoming FIRST GLOBAL SUMMIT on TRADITIONAL MEDICINE on August 17-18 in Gujarat, India, which is currently also hosting the G20 forum.
Gujarat is also the place where in 2022, in response to the growing demand and interest in traditional medicine, the WHO, together with the Government of India, established the Global Center for Traditional Medicine. The Global Center’s mission is to synthesize knowledge from the worlds of naturopathy and traditional medicine (Traditional Chinese Medicine, Anthroposophy, Ayurveda, Unani, and others) and to catalyze the linking of age-old wisdom and breakthroughs in modern science to contribute to the health and well-being of people and the planet.
This week’s conversation focused on the collaborative efforts of organizations and institutions around the world, large and small, to integrate traditional, complementary and integrative health practices into functional health and medical systems.
A few highlights that emerged from the discussion:
- emphasis on the notable and urgently increasing demand by PEOPLE for REAL choices in health care.
- the acceptance that health is derived from wholeness and that we must draw from “a deeper source of collective wisdom and knowledge about health” that exists but that is so far neglected and not well enough represented in health systems as we know them in most countries.
- the considerations of many of the organizations involved in the consultation that with the new push to ‘globalize’ TCIH and the spread of the more familiar systems from China, India, the Middle East, there is also a need to support, valorize and protect local traditional healing systems as well, and to preserve and developing the wisdom and knowledge of the smaller countries.
The Gergina Foundation intends to be an active participant in these global processes, while working to strengthen TCIH in Bulgaria and Europe. Our vision is for a health and healing system that affirms life and serves the full expressions of human potentiality.