History
The Global Initiative for Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health was founded from meetings at the Pan American Health Organization headquarters in Washington, D.C.. in August 1993, with support from the Canadian Government’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). GIFTS of Health was initially located at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington DC., with support from the US National Institute’s of Health Fogerty International Centre and the then-Office of Alternative Medicine (now the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine - NCCAM).
With this funding, GIFTS organised a series of international conferences in 1994 and 1995 on ‘Traditional Medicine and Public Policy’. These were held in Caracas, Venezuela; Kampala, Uganda; Hanoi, Vietnam and Oxford, UK (See special GIFTS of Health issue of the Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, 2006)
In 1995, The Global Initiative for Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health re-located to Oxford, with a base in the University of Oxford’s Dept of Dermatology. The Global Initiative for Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health also operates a registered British charity, GIFTS OF HEALTH, Charity No. 279413. Directors are Professor TJ Ryan, Professor J Burley and Professor G Bodeker. GIFTS OF HEALTH is registered to receive grants and other funds for research projects on natural healthcare.
GIFTS of Health has taken the lead in establishing an international collaboration between practitioners, researchers and physicians with an interest in traditional approaches to preventing and treating malaria, entitled the Research Initiative for Traditional Antimalarial Methods (RITAM), funded initially by the Rockefeller Foundation and WHO’s Tropical Disease Research (TDR) division. The first meeting of RITAM was held at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Moshi, Tanzania in December 1999, with a follow-up meeting in November 2001. GIFTS of Health has also worked closely with African and Asian NGOs and scientists on traditional medicine and HIV/AIDS.
From 1999-2001, GIFTS acted as the Secretariat for the Commonwealth Working Group on Traditional and Complementary Health Systems (CWG-TCHS), established at the 1998 Commonwealth Health Ministers’ Meeting. Working in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, the CWG-TCHS provided information on public policy on traditional and complementary medicine, and also organized an international meeting on the traditional medicine and HIV/AIDS in Bangkok in 2000 and on the safety of herbal medicines in Sydney, Australia in 2001. The CWG-TCHS also worked with the Government of Malaysia’s Ministry of Health to establish an international electronic information rescource on traditional and complementary medicine.
GIFTS has convened several other international conferences, including a parallel meeting to the Fifth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2000, and has been closely involved with the World Health Organization Centre for Health Development in Kobe, Japan (WHO Kobe Centre, WKC) for several years. GIFTS and WKC collaborated to develop the World Health Organization Global Atlas of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2005). The association between GIFTS of Health and Oxford University remains strong, through a series of collaborative projects, guest lectures, the Oxford Medical School’s CAM course, and research projects involving the supervision of Oxford MSc and doctoral students.
Board & Secretariat
Professor Gerard Bodeker, Chair, GIFTS of Health, Oxford UK.
& Division of Medical Sciences University of Oxford;
& Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA
Ms. Gemma Burford, GIFTS of Health, Oxford & Fouding Director, Aang Serian, Tanzania .
Professor Jeffrey Burley. Emeritus Director, Oxford Forestry Institute, University of Oxford, UK.
Dr. EC Green, Harvard School of Public Health, USA
Professor He Shan An, Nanjing Botanical Garden, China.
Dr. Donna Kabatesi, CDC, & Board Member, Traditional and Modern Health Practitioners Together Against AIDS (THETA), Uganda
Professor Fredi Kronenberg, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, USA.
Professor Philippe Rasoanaivo, Institut Malgache de Recherches Appliquées, Madagascar.
Professor Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, Chair, International Clinical & Epidemiological Network, New Delhi, India.
Professor Terence Ryan. Emeritus Professor of Dermatology, University of Oxford.
Sri Darshan Shankar, Director, Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT), Bangalore, India.
A/Professor Joel Swerdlow, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Dr. Merlin Willcox, Secretary, Research Initiative on Traditional Antimalarial Methods (RITAM), Oxford, UK
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The Global Initiative for Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health also operates a registered British charity, GIFTS OF HEALTH, Registered Charity No. 279413. The charity directors are Professor TJ Ryan, Professor J Burley and Professor G Bodeker. GIFTS OF HEALTH is registered to receive grants and other funds for research projects on natural healthcare.
Funding
GIFTS of Health does not have a permanent sponsor, and is not affiliated with any private company. Funds are received on a project-by-project basis, usually in the form of a one-off grant, consultancy fee or contribution towards conference expenses.
The following institutions have supported GIFTS activities:
Commonwealth Health Dept, & Commonwealth Foundation, UK – Commonwealth Working Group on Traditional & Complementary Health Systems
Ford Foundation – travel fellowships for conferences
Glendinning Medical Trust – research on utilisation of complementary medicine for skin disease
Government of Malaysia – Global Information Hub on Integrated Medicine
Henry Smith Charity – research on utilisation of complementary/alternative therapists in the UK
Journal of Tropical Medicinal Plants, for work on the First International Conference on Women’s Health & Asian Traditional Medicine, Kuala Lumpur, 2005.
Multilateral Initiative on Malaria - Research Initiative on Traditional Antimalarial Methods (RITAM)
Network for Social Responsibility – core funding and Commonwealth Working Group
Nuffield Foundation – RITAM; and research on traditional medicine for skin diseases in developing countries
Oxford Refugee Studies Centre – utilization of traditional health services by refugees
Rockefeller Foundation – RITAM
UNAIDS – workshop on HIV/AIDS and traditional medicine (Nairobi, 2000)
UN Environment Programme – for development of a ‘Traditional Medicine’ section in ‘Cultural & Spiritual Values in Biodiversity’, Posey, 2000
US National Institutes of Health, Fogerty International Centre – international conferences on policy
WHO Centre for Health Development, Kobe – WHO Global Atlas of Traditional, Complementary & Alternative Medicine
WHO Division of Tropical Disease Research – RITAM
GIFTS of Health occasionally offers small research grants or short-term consultancies to qualified individuals in the context of its larger projects. Details of these opportunities will be posted on this website as they arise. There are no vacancies at present. We regret that we cannot provide any funding for activities unrelated to our existing projects, even if they are consistent with the aims and objectives of GIFTS; nor do we offer any studentships for higher degrees.
Partnerships
GIFTS of Health has recent or current partnerships with the following organisations:
Antenna Technologies, Geneva, Switzerland
Biotropics, Malaysia
COMPAS, The Netherlands
Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons
Institute for Materia Medica, Ministry of Science, Hanoi, Vietnam
Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT), Bangalore, India
Karen Department of Health and Welfare, Mae Sot, Thailand
Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), Chiang Mai, Thailand
International Foundation for Dermatology (IFD), UK and Nanjing, China
Queen Sirikit Botanical Garden, Chiang Mai, Thailand
WHO Centre for Health Development, Kobe, Japan (WHO Kobe Centre)
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Nairobi, Kenya
The Journal of Tropical Medicinal Plants, Malaysia
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