Fiche government grants land for ‘Healing Plants’

Congratulations to the Etse-Fewus ‘Healing Plants’ Association in Fiche. The kebele local government has just granted them 1,000 sq metres (1/4 acre) of land to build a community medicinal herb garden!

The herbalists and householders – who have been part of the Botanica Ethiopia project from the beginning – formed their own association earlier this year to support one another in growing medicinal home gardens. As one member, Ato Abi, said at the time: ‘You can’t tie a bundle of sticks without a tie, can you?’

Back in January, Botanica Ethiopia and Etse-Fewus took their ideas to the city council and were told that if they could get their own household gardens to flourish, the kebele would look at giving them land for community use. Today we received the good news.

“This is a great achievement from the local government side to provide the association with this very important input,” said our project liaison officer, Tessema, in Ethiopia today. “Now we need to build their capacity with support such as hand tools and water facilities to implement the garden.”

“We’ll start our work at the beginning of the rainy season,” says herbalist and priest Merigeta Enbakom. The community is hoping the ‘big’ June-Sept rain starts falling soon – the February rains never came.

Here are some photos of Etse-Fewus members in Fiche.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.