Homeopathic doctor Melanie Dupres is off to a Ghanaian clinic next month to share her knowledge with local practitioners and volunteers.

She is taking part in the Ghana Homeopathy Project, which is a registered UK charity that is dedicated to the professional development of homeopathy, in the country especially among the poor.

The project came about after an invitation from Amurt Ghana, a local NGO which now supplies 25 villages with clean water. The intention then was to introduce homeopathy to their projects.

The interest and response of the Ghanaians proved beyond all expectation, and this led to the formation of the Ghana Homeopathy Project.

Ms Dupres went to India last year to study with colleagues from England at a teaching college there.

"When I returned one of my colleagues, Linda Shannon, e-mailed me and said that she was starting this project in Ghana, so right away I said, 'I'm there.' And I have been waiting for over a year," she said.

"They have the clinic going, but they are now ready to accept volunteers. So my plan is to go and teach some of the doctors and staff, and treat as well and generally help out as much as possible."

At this juncture her aim is to raise funds for the Charity, so that when she goes, she can take books, medicines, and she hopes to be able to present a cheque to help them with their endeavours.

The clinic runs on about $500 a month and these funds help to pay the salaries of a Kenyan Homeopathic doctor, to support the clinic and manager's fees, and to support the educational project in developing teaching materials relevant to the Ghanaian experience.

They also need a digital video recorder and PowerPoint projector in order to record local clinical practice and workshops.

"This work promises to ease the suffering of thousands and your contribution will make a big difference," added Ms Dupres.

The clinic mainly focuses on homeopathy, but there is a lady there that does other natural modalities.

"With these things you get together and teach people some of the acute Arnica, Echinacea, Calendula, all these things are first aid remedies that you could get at Down to Earth or any health food store," she said.

"Then you go on to teach them from the bigger pictures, the constitutional remedies and we treat people on a very deep level."

All homeopathic remedies are from natural ingredients, she explained.

"So anything from plants or animals, like snake venom, minerals and they are diluted down, so there is no crude substance," she explained.

"They are medicated onto a pill, which is a vehicle for this essence.

"They are usually dissolved underneath the tongue; it is kind of basic, simple stuff."

Sometimes this simplicity works against homeopathy and people have difficulty getting their heads round it, because they are used to pills and the doctor telling you to take this indefinitely or take this antibiotic for ten days.

"But sometimes, I only prescribe one pill and people are like, 'what?'

"But I think that in general, people have forgotten that the body is able to heal itself, so what a lot of natural remedies do, and homeopathy in particular, is encourage that healing process.

"It is like giving it a shove, back into the right direction, because you can often see with diseases is that we often become stuck — we might have an emotional trauma and from there people would say, from there this started to happen. So it just has to be jolted."

Ms Dupres explained that you can give a disease a label, but there are often a lot of patterns in the emotional, mental history of people that are suffering from conditions.

"It is often interesting that sometimes when people are telling you something and they are hesitating, but you are able to fill in the blanks and they are like, 'yeah.'

"It is nothing that is really profound, but it's just that they don't think of it for themselves."

When she left Bermuda, her intention was to study conventional medicine, but when studying for her A-Levels she discovered a new passion.

"I kept hearing about acupuncture, aromatherapy and homeopathy and I fell in love with the whole thing, the philosophy of it and the history of it, where it fits into science and all of that," she said.

"Because the system was created by a Germany doctor from allopathic medicine at that time, he was blood letting, purging and poisoning.

"He saw that there was another way a more gentle way, and he created a system. So for me it all made sense, and then there was a spiritual aspect to it — I thought, 'this encompasses everything, it is not just about curing that whatever and not about just curing, but attempting to heal or palliating it."

With all of what she learned making sense, after her A-Levels she studied human science at University College London'

"I then did my studies in homeopathy and then I still wasn't ready to leave England, so I went on, I was practising as well, but I studied complimentary therapy postgraduate to get a broader view."

On returning to Bermuda, she closed her practise in London and opened one here on Parliament Street with Dr. Femi Bada.

"It was fantastic and slow to begin with, and then it picked up, and then slow again, up and down and always part time jobs to supplement," she said.

"I have done things to increase awareness, talks and I taught at the Community Education for a few terms in a row.

"In terms of homeopathy I think that people are willing to try it, but there is not that commitment, but I think that people don't understand.

"The whole nature of it is so subtle that words can't describe, I can talk about the whole mental, physical, spiritual, but that means nothing, because it supports the idea of us as energy although we get caught up in the physical being.

"But if we take a step back about how we interact in life, there are no coincidences, and you kind of know what is going to happen in a day or an hour, but this is not something that we are taught or know, or respect.

"But there are more people doing that kind of work and are focusing on it."

Ms Dupres leaves for Ghana in October and will be there for three weeks. The account number for financial donations is 010363711002.