How did it all get started?

Imagine being asked "When you get sick, who do you go see first?" The answer to that question asked in a village in Central Africa in 1996 prompted then medical resident Henri Roca to pause and consider Americans’ response. The primary care givers in those African villages were the "traditional healers", herbalists, priests, and bonesetters. By using the existing village resources and showing respect for the local cultural beliefs, the World Health Organization (WHO) Project was able to introduce concepts of basic nutrition, hygiene, and emergency care to improve the health of the village.

Americans also seek a level of health care more primary than their conventional primary care doctors. Americans turn to complementary and alternative medicine practitioners in record numbers far surpassing conventional primary care physicians. (Eisenburg, 1997) Dr. Roca returned from Africa with the vision of creating such a cooperative venture for American healers one and all.

In 1997, Henri Roca, M.D. and a small group of volunteers in West Virginia founded the Wholistic Wellness Network (WWN). The WWN emerged as a forum for complementary practitioners, conventional primary care providers, and general community members to gather and create ways to integrate their work for the benefit of the entire community. The WWN is a grassroots, national alliance of community-based Chapters who support integrative approaches to restoring health and maintaining wellness. It exists to integrate planetary healing methods with conventional Western medicine at both the community and the institutional levels.

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