on placements to undertake solidarity projects implemented by the association and in partnership with local facilitators. Today, the association has three main objectives: - To get to know all the medicinal plants currently used and enhance the general knowledge of these plants. - To help spread this knowledge to the local population in order to improve basic health care - To raise awareness about the protection of natural resources and the preservation of local biodiversity in the context of sustainable development. The association’s main office is still in the School of Pharmacy, at the University of Lille, allowing it to maintain a strong link with pharmacy students. Every year, the association organizes several events to promote its projects and missions. During the annual Pharmacy Forum, the association holds a stall to engage more with pharmacy students, to raise awareness among them about international solidarity and to let them know what is going on with the main project in Madagascar. It also promotes ethnopharmacology by following an intercultural approach based on strong ethics. From time to time, the association sells Malagasy craft artworks, exhibits photographs from Madagascar, and organizes awareness evenings in local pubs in Lille to raise funds for the association. Young pharmacy students from Lille have also raised awareness in France about sanitary and environmental issues around medicinal plants. They reached out to a varied audience including school children and retired people. In Madagascar, the association raises awareness around diarrheal and respiratory diseases to the
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local population. It also takes part in reforestation campaigns and implemented a pedagogical medicinal garden in an eco-touristic site in Tampolo forest. If you want to know more about the AVERTEM association, please visit its website (in French, sorry!) at www.avertem.fr , contact us via info@ avertem.fr and join us on Facebook at https:// www.facebook.com/groups/180357156835/