Are psychiatric treatments, experts, and medications the best way for traumatized communities to heal their mental health problems? Could indigenous practices, including traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, offer a different way forward — through grassroots community development?

Madness Radio’s Will Hall explores these questions in his podcast “Borderlands Acupuncture” airing December 8, 2016.  Hall joined the Barefoot Acupuncture Movement during our 2016 Immersion in Mexico, where we trained local health workers in the NADA ear acupuncture (acudetox) protocol.

Acupuncture is becoming more accessible—one ear at a time.

Ear acupuncture, also known as auricular acupuncture, is the most widely used form of acupuncture within Western health settings in the United States and Europe.

"A lot of our students migrated from other parts of Mexico to Juarez with their families to work in the maquiladoras, and a lot of the people they help are employed in the factories (or used to be until they got laid off). Our new school is inspired by another migrant and factory worker who is credited as the founder of acupuncture in the West: Miriam Lee. Back in the 70’s, she assisted other factory workers in California after she immigrated from China. It’s fitting that we are teaching her techniques and her spirit of service has caught hold among our students.
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 BAM co-founder Ryan Bemis interviewed on Latina Lista

East meets (South)west 

Crossroads Acupuncture looks forward to New Year as a nonprofit

By Zak Hansen

Originally published in the Las Cruces Bulletin, December 2013

In March 2012, Crossroads Community Acupuncture opened its doors in a small closet space within a building undergoing construction at 125 N. Main St., becoming the first low-cost com­munity acupuncture clinic in the Las Cruces/El Paso region. After raising enough money to move to a large, refurbished space just down the street, CCA moved to its current location, inside one of the oldest buildings in Las Cruces, at 130 S. Main St. (EDIT:  Crossroads has since moved to 1320 S. Solano inside Families and Youth, INC.)