“Medicina For The People affirmed the values I hold dear as they relate to creating and offering more access to herbal, folk medicine”
- Irischa Valentin
Medicina For The People
Project Description
Irischa's project "Medicina For The People" is a vision that dreams of providing herbal medicine and aromatherapy to Black, Indigenous, and people of color who in direct and indirect ways are fighting at the front lines of injustices and anti-oppression - those who commit to alchemizing racial, economic, health, educational, and/or social injustices. These times have proven extra challenging to BIPOC who continue to be the most impacted by Covid-19. In late spring, we also bore witness to the racial justice uprisings that jolted many people to the unjust realities that Black and Brown people live with everyday.
"Medicina for the People" intends to bring healing in the form of plant medicine as a way to remember that resistance calls for rest and self-healing; that grief and rage are related to joy and equanimity. Remembering the healing gifts of our plant allies, "Medicina for the People" shares self-and collective-healing practices that remind us of our inherent right to heal while resisting.
Artist Bio
Irischa Valentin (she/her) is a community herbalist based in the Wampanoag/Massachusett territory. She has been formally studying and learning from plants since 2013. The herbal values Irischa upholds integrate folk medicine, building relationships with local ecology, and living sustainably and consciously with madre Earth. She shares plant-healing wisdom through workshops, discussions, and community-centered events. Irischa's belief in social justice and equity drives her herbal work to often marginalized and historically oppressed communities. She is co-creator of a BIPOC healing collective Stinging Nettle Brujxs Healing Collective. As a healing justice activist, Irischa co-creates spaces and opportunities with other community healers to decolonize healing. When not learning from plants, she is dancing, traveling, spending time with her family in Boston and Puerto Rico, gardening, making herbal, flower, & aromatherapy medicines, and teaching young people in Boston Public Schools.
“I appreciated all the loving support I received from the RIRJ crew during the creation of this project. I am forever grateful for the connections made!”
- Irischa Valentin
Irischa and Jossira make healing salves together
Seed packets because seeds represent sovereignty
basket with tincture, seed packets, healing salve, tea blend, crystals, white pine smudges and a little love note
The medicina packets ready to be shipped!
Folks received their medicina bundle in a reusable muslin bag
"Barrier Balm for Resisting" salves