Sunflowers are beautiful, but they’re packed with health benefits when made into a tea, says Grace Cohn of the Sunflower Project.
A humanitarian aid project is preparing the first shipment of sunflower tea to be sent to Africa to help sick children recovering from malaria.
Her interest in homeopathic remedies goes back many years. Growing up in Toronto, she spent a lot of time in Hyde Park, a 100-acre natural area.
“I had a huge connection to nature from the beginning,” she said. “Homeopathy is…the energy of the petals. It’s definitely a stimulant. And what it does is it basically stimulates the person’s body to use its own self-healing mechanisms. .”
Three years ago, Cohn and a friend were offered an acre of land to garden in Dunster, in British Columbia’s Robson Valley region. The two wanted to help the bees, so they decided to plant a sunflower field. Bees appreciated the flowers, and the two gardeners later learned of the dozens of health benefits the leaves provided.
They eventually founded a small company called Who Knew Sunflower Tea Crew. This summer, they learned that sunflower tea could help people with malaria. Mosquito-borne parasitic diseases are causing more people to become sick and die than Cohn originally thought.
“One day I asked, ‘Are children still suffering from malaria?’ I discovered something startling: a child dies from malaria every minute. Our current project is to deliver tea to children who need it.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 627,000 people died from malaria in 2020 alone. The disease occurs primarily in poor tropical and subtropical regions of the world and is a major cause of illness and death. The most vulnerable groups are young children and pregnant women.
The Himawari Project blossomed as an initiative to “see a need and meet a need.” Cohn said he wants to make a positive contribution to the world, and offering pots of healing tea to sick people fits that purpose.
“Is there a better way to help these children? Some are receiving medication, but one child is dying every minute, so we certainly need help. That’s where we come in. Let’s not only donate all our time to this project, but also raise money for the transportation costs to get the actual product to the children.”
They have set up an exhibit at Jasper Rock and Jade where people can learn more about the project and donate. They have already sent the first shipment of sunflower tea to Uganda.
Cohn wants to grow the project and be able to deliver to more locations, and he wants to make sure each delivery is a success.
She said people could just stop buying coffee for the day and put that money into something useful like this instead.
“There is a strong motivation to help,” she said. “As North Americans, I think we need a little more empathy. We’re still a rich country. There’s a lot of things we still spend money on. There’s a demand for it. Every single day. There are children dying every minute.”
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