AWB volunteers Julia Raneri, Meg McDowell, Jennifer Trombley, and Carla Cassler just returned from four days at the Enclave Caracol Clinic (sponsored by the Refugee Health Alliance) in Tijuana, Mexico. This is the first of regular service trips that AWB will be making in the coming year to provide trauma and pain relief treatments to asylum seekers, immigrants, refugees, and community support volunteers in the Tijuana-San Diego area. AWB already has a similar project in Texas.
Over 9,000 people are waiting in Tijuana for asylum processing, many living in shelters under very difficult conditions. The Refugee Health Alliance was created last year “to help mobilize Southern California providers and their networks down to the Tijuana/San Diego international border to aid in the refugee crisis.” The Enclave Caracol Clinic, staffed by volunteer medical providers, herbalists and midwives, is open weekdays to provide integrative medical services to the migrating community. On Saturdays, additional volunteers staff mobile clinics in shelters throughout Tijuana, where people are living while they wait.
On this first service trip, we treated many people (most from Honduras, Haiti, and Cameroon) for significant pain and trauma patterns. We also worked with clinic herbalists to enhance a wonderful pharmacy that includes many traditional Mexican herb remedies. Over the next months, as we work with the clinic staff, we will learn more about traditional healing practices and herbal medicine used in Mexico and Central America, and offer Chinese medicine as a complement.
We plan to train local practitioners to provide treatments, and work on the California side of the border to support asylum seekers once they are within US borders.
Special thanks to the Mayway Corporation for donating huge amounts of herbs, to Lhasa OMS and Acurea Medical for acupuncture supplies, and to Kurt Chilcott (CA Endowment) and Patricia Simpson for financial support for this project. If you would like to participate in this project, please contact Carla Cassler at director@acuwithoutborders.org.
