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Sept. 11, 2020

STAFF REPORTER

7 min read

Our Health Is Our Wealth with Majubere Mofolo-Mugandani

Our Health Is Our Wealth with Majubere Mofolo-Mugandani

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Majubere is a wife and a mother to all her children. Her passion for health and wellness and 10 years’ experience in private sector development influenced her decision to establish a wellness company called Back to Nature. Before she started the company, Majubere Mofolo Mugandani (MM) adopted the alkaline vegan lifestyle to reverse disease and revitalise her body.

Her alkaline vegan lifestyle experience led her to establish an entity that seeks to help share experiences and knowledge with anyone willing to transition to the alkaline lifestyle. Majubere started Back to Nature in early 2019 to make the natural and alkaline lifestyle accessible and affordable to Basotho to attain optimal health. Back to Nature focuses only on selling alkaline herbs and foods. Majubere aspires to grow the company to become a holistic wellness entity that provides a variety of natural health-related services and products locally and across the borders. In this wide-ranging interview with Advocate Mothepa Ndumo (MN), Majubere discusses the concept behind the theme ‘Our health is our wealth.

MN: Apart from the work that you do at BEDCO, you are also the Founder of Back to Nature, kindly explain to Basotho what factors led you to establish this entity?

MM: Back to Nature was conceived as a result of my passion for pursuing a healthy lifestyle and to solve some health issues I was experiencing at the time. My professional experience in Business Development also added value in the conception of Back to Nature. I have always been a health-conscious person and valued the life that God has given me. This is the way I was raised since childhood. My late mother was very strict and particular with what we ate. Back then, I actually thought that she was mean and inconsiderate. Today I am grateful and cannot thank her enough for being the mother she was to her children. In 2014 after my son was born, I had some health issues that opened my third eye even wider concerning the true quality of life. I was obliged to take responsibility for my life and adopted a stricter lifestyle in terms of nutrition.

Being a health-conscious person, I already had an idea of the different modalities of natural healing and lifestyles that exist out there. The only lifestyle that made and still makes sense to me is the alkaline vegan lifestyle based on the African Bio-Mineral Balance concept coined by the late herbalist Alfredo Bowman who is popularly known as Dr.Sebi. The foundation of the African Bio-Mineral Balance concept is the African genome After three years of adopting this lifestyle and reaping the benefits, I felt compelled to continue the journey and help my fellow Africans, especially Basotho. I always feel so sad to see Basotho so submissive to poor eating habits. We have now come to believe that it is normal to live with certain diseases like hypertension or diabetes and to take all kinds of medications to manage these conditions. In most cases, these are lifestyle diseases that can easily be avoided with a proper diet. In 2019, I founded Back to Nature to fulfill my desire to promote traditional medicine, good health, and wellness, share my experience, and most importantly, make Basotho aware that it is possible to live a disease-free life. I got huge encouragement from my colleagues, friends, and family and I am grateful for their support.

 My work experience in private sector development also played a significant role in positioning Back to Nature in the market. As the name depicts, Back to Nature is established on the principle of the reversion to a simpler way of life. At Back to Nature we advocate for the alkaline vegan lifestyle and we sell a wide range of alkaline herbs and foods that promote quality of life. For the health and wellness sector to work it really needs people to be educated mainly on what a proper diet means. For example, someone would prefer imported chicken cuts washed with chlorine and not buy cheaper and non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) chickens (khoho tsa Sesotho). Research has proved that processed foods are a great contributor to cancers which now are so high.

MN: How would you describe the Mission of Back to Nature to Basotho and why this Mission is critical to us as a Nation in 2020, the year of COVID-19, and other ailments?

MM: The general modern lifestyles and diets are quite toxic, acidic, and lead to the manifestation of diseases and inflammation within the body. The body succumbs to diseases when it is acidified, it is unable to heal itself naturally. Our mission is to inspire and help improve people’s daily quality of life with alkaline herbs and diet. The alkaline diet is now more important than ever with so many people falling ill from COVID-19. An alkaline state in the body supports cells and metabolic processes. It also supports a healthy immune system which is our first line of defense against diseases including COVID-19.

Unhealthy diets put us at a much higher risk of contracting multiple diseases. We encourage everyone to be proactive against Coronavirus by keeping our minds, emotions, and bodies in optimal health with alkaline herbs and foods. Although there is not much documentation available, there are personal confessions of people who use herbs and proper diet to treat COVID-19. The obvious example is the use of Lengana (African wormwood/ artemisia) which is available to Basotho for free as opposed to the expensive Western medication recommended for COVID-19.

MN: In what ways can we locate a company like Back to Nature in our economic development value chain?

MN: Health and economic development cannot be separated. “A healthy nation is a wealthy nation.” Health and wellness companies, like Back to Nature, add value and contribute to the economic development of the country through the promotion of and advocating for healthy lifestyles to minimize lifestyle diseases and the number of people relying on subsidized medication from the government. With the absence of pharmaceutical industries in the country, Lesotho spends a lot of money on the importation and subsidies of pharmaceutical products to treat lifestyle diseases that could have been prevented with changes in our lifestyles. This does not only affect government spending, it also affects individual spending in terms of medical bills and higher medical aid premiums. For instance, in 2017, one tablet of chemotherapy cost roughly  M30 000.00.

Back to Nature also plays a critical role in raising awareness, educating, and inspiring the nation by changing people’s mindsets on going back to nature by simply using natural herbs and foods that are affordable and promote healthy living.

When people are sick or not informed about healthier lifestyles it means absenteeism in workplaces is high and that harms economic activities. Traditional medicine has existed for thousands of years and it has now made a comeback due to the emergence of many diseases.

Back to Nature avails the accessibility of herbs and ancient foods that promote health to Basotho. Therefore, a lot of money spent on drugs can be channeled to support other initiatives.

 

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MN: What type of opportunities, in your estimation, are available to Basotho in the health and wellness sector and how can this sector be grown to reach export capacity?

MM: Many opportunities exist in the health and wellness sector that Basotho haven’t taken advantage of. Lesotho has potent medicinal herbs that haven’t been commercialized. Lesotho needs to commercialize medicinal herbs and process them for export markets.

This would strengthen existing value chains in the sector and create jobs even for the most vulnerable populations of our communities. However, we first need to start by appreciating traditional medicine and explore ways in which indigenous knowledge can be sustained.

This is where training and education become critical to have indigenous practices on medicinal herbs included in the education curricula. Indigenous health practices are at risk and for the longest time, have been distanced from the entire health system i.e.

Western medicine, policymaking, health infrastructure to name just a few. With the inclusion of indigenous practices in our health system, it would be easy to find a balance on how traditional medicine and Western medicine can create an alchemy that can improve the quality of life for Basotho and all others on this planet.

This kind of collaboration would easily attract support and interest from other sectors such as research institutions and private laboratories for further research.

In Lesotho, health food shops are few and in big shops non-genetically modified foods are scarce. Health food shops are necessary so that non-GMO foods can be available. It is a sector that is still raw, it just needs creativity and passion. Everything depends on us as citizens to initiate such ventures, we only need the government to provide support through regulatory frameworks that will govern the sector and an enabling environment to enhance the commercialization of traditional medicines and monitor issues of compliance.

Research and Development by institutions of higher learning will also play a major role in determining the usage, efficacy of herbs, information dissemination, and influencing the mindsets of people. Due to growing demand in traditional medicine, there are high chances that this sector will grow in leaps and bounds in terms of market base.

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