Non Profits

Carla Cassler of Acupuncturists Without Borders provides a recap of 2022: New modalities added to the AWB trauma-informed toolkit, disaster response work, and ongoing support for refugees, veterans, and underserved farmworkers providing 250,000 treatments worldwide with 600 integrative practitioners. Read more about AWB and how you can get involved.

For 31 years, the Oakland-based nonprofit has provided free access to compassionate, integrative care for thousands of San Francisco Bay Area low-income women with cancer. Inspired by the vision of Ms. Charlotte Maxwell, a progressive public health advocate who recognized the importance of combining complementary therapies with conventional cancer treatment. Read more about CMC and how you can help.

Universal Holistic Healthcare is a 501c3 that works to promote integrative healthcare services to underserved and under-resourced communities both domestically in the United States and globally. They've done numerous projects in St Louis, Missouri including an integrative HIV/AIDS clinic providing low-cost acupuncture services through collaboration with health clinics for uninsured/underinsured in addition to working towards the construction of Sankofa Integrative Medicine Clinic and Community Healthcare Worker Training Center in Kukurantumi, Ghana, West Africa. Read more about their cause and how to contribute.

2022 is the Year of the Tiger, and an update on the preservation of this magnificent animal seems fitting. Yvonne Lau, President of Mayway, discusses the current status of tiger conservation with links to read more about what you can do to help preserve their numbers.

Gratitude is what many of us feel and reflect upon this season. In that spirit, here are some east Asian medicine (EAM) organizations that we appreciate and support, and hope that you will consider supporting too. They all work in some way to promote traditional Chinese medicine, while fostering a sense of community and shared purpose.

Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB) works throughout the US and internationally to bring trauma-informed, integrative health care to communities impacted by disaster, violence, climate change, poverty, and social injustice. We call AWB’s work the Medicine of Peace because cultivating peaceful, healthy communities is our overarching goal. We believe that trauma is often at the basis of human suffering, and that unless trauma cycles are interrupted and resolved at the personal, familial, community and global level, this suffering will continue unabated. Trauma healing helps people feel hopeful, resilient, and empowered.

Charlotte Maxwell Clinic (CMC), the Oakland, CA-based nonprofit women’s clinic, is celebrating 30 years of providing free access to compassionate integrative care, including acupuncture, herbs, body work, homeopathy, guided imagery, and nutrition education, for low-income women with cancer in the San Francisco Bay Area. As the reopened clinic welcomes clients anxiously seeking 1-on-1 services in a nurturing environment, the safety of all concerned is of utmost importance. We are so excited to return and greatly appreciate your support of our mission in providing the highest opportunity for improved health outcomes and quality of life for low-income women impacted by cancer and complications from the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the New Year begins, we can see light in the midst of darkness. The COVID-19 pandemic will likely fade into a less virulent disaster for communities around the world, as more people gain immunity through natural exposure and immunization. The suffering has been deep, devastating and global, combined with other major stressors like systemic injustice, natural disasters, poverty, violence, human displacement and long-neglected generational trauma. It has been a very hard year. We review the NADA ear acupuncture protocol and its effect on trauma.

AWB made its fourth service trip to Espacio in February, right before CoVid shelter-in-place regulations went into effect. Luckily, we were able to complete a NADA ear acupuncture training for 10 midwives, who are now able to treat patients every day. A new birth center for migrant women has been created, and AWB continues to supply herbs, moxa, and telemedicine training for the midwifery team until we can resume service trips with greater safety. Read about Ximena, a midwife working towards creating an integrated clinic at the border offering bio-medical services and traditional, culturally inclusive healing therapies.

Right now, little is known about the health risks and problems in rural Nepal. No one knows exactly how many cases of diabetes or hypertension are in the population because most of the cases are undiagnosed. It might be a huge problem and it might not. We don’t know. This research will be a groundbreaking model in Nepal that is actively utilizing an integrative approach to address the real health needs of it’s people.

Acupuncturists Without Borders has never been called upon to respond to so many disasters as we have this fall. Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, the shooting in Las Vegas, and the fires in California have left millions of people in the United States without homes, power, medicine, communication resources, or a semblance of safety. Many of our neighbors are traumatized and are facing long recovery periods – in their external circumstances and internally on an emotional level.

“How can I help you?” This simple question should summarize our relationship with our patients by placing us in a role of service to our patients. Unfortunately, all too often, the question is presented more in the light of “What is the problem?”.

Due to AWB’s ongoing work in Nepal, a trauma healing “infrastructure” has been put in place, with trained practitioners already on the ground. This is a huge gift to Nepal’s recovery. AWB Nepal practitioners are deepening their skills as community organizers/healers through this disaster response.

"Acupuncturists Without Borders' (AWB) vision is to help build stable, peaceful, global communities. Knowing that unresolved trauma can have repercussions for decades, we train acupuncturists to offer community style acupuncture to interrupt this cycle… Over the past ten years, AWB has learned that the best way to accomplish this mission is by training acupuncturists to provide trauma relief in their own communities.” - Diana Fried

In November, 2014 the Global Acupuncture Project (formerly The PanAfrican Acupuncture Project) embarked on a new initiative. Having trained over 300 health-care workers in Uganda, we began visiting our Trainees where they practice to provide ongoing support and supervision and to enrich their skills and understanding of acupuncture.