Tabanka e.V.
Verein zur Förderung dörflicher Initiativen in Westafrika
Kartäuserstr. 26
97332 Volkach
Germany
Contact person: Sonja Prexler-Schwab
+49 (0)9381-802006
tabanka@gmx.net
http://tabanka.de
Topics
- Aid for developing countries
- Social policy/disabled persons
- Aid organization
About us
“The “Tabanka" organisation is made up of former aid workers in West Africa and others who wish to back them up in their activities to alleviate poverty and provide humanitarian aid.
We are registered as a non profit-making organisation, our objective being to support local village initiatives in the areas of health, education and rural development in West Africa, focussing on Guinea-Bissau. The emphasis is on traditional medicine and training of young people, especially women and girls.
Our contribution to the funding for our projects comes from the sale of hand-crafted items at village festivities, arts and crafts markets, wine festivals, information stands at events, musical events etc. We try to add to this with donations and public funding.
Our projects are also very important to us.
Projects:
• Naturopathy project: Support and regular further education in herbal medicine for a group of doctors, nurses and traditional healers, with the aim of increasing their knowledge of local medicinal plants, and achieving safety in dosages and processing.
There is now a book on Guinean medicinal plants, as well as a few herbal pharmacies and a public garden of medicinal plants in the country.
Apart from these health concerns, we concentrate on improving nutrition. In 2011 the group is to give a symposium on the value of the moringa, in the hope of providing an impetus to include this protein and vitamin rich plant into the daily diet. This is an attempt to improve the nutrition of the people and to help solve the problems of soil erosion and global warming. In the future, this knowledge of certain herbal remedies and medicinal plants will be spread through local health clinics and village schools, and small local herbal gardens will be established.
• Solar light project: “Just imagine what it is like for a community which has lived for centuries in the dark, suddenly to have lights in their huts!” This was the cry of our counterparts in Guinea, after setting up a workshop for the production of bright lights which could be recharged by means of a solar panel. Demand rose rapidly after it became possible to charge mobile phones, too, with special connectors to the solar panel. To date, 800 families enjoy this “luxury”.
• Trial of energy-saving measures in the villages: funding and testing of solar ovens and driers, and energy-saving clay ovens.
• Funding rice-dehulling machines in a few villages, so that the women are relieved of the hard work of stamping the rice, which they have to do daily or even several times a day. This should reduce the number of miscarriages and premature births.
• Connecting a distant island - with 1500 inhabitants but without a school or health clinic – to the mainland, by financing a traditional barge as a ferry.
• Recycling project: producing permanent bags from plastic bags, re-using empty plastic bottles to build water cisterns.
Dr. med. Sonja Prexler-Schwab is the president of TABANKA.
On request we can offer other net participants advice, or up to date information and contacts in the field of our work.
