29. From Farm to Apothecary & Community Herbalism: Monica Francia on Herbal Education

Monica Francia is a herbalist, naturopath, nutritionist and herbal educator who is a passionate about community herbalism. Monica has a strong values-based practice with a focus on accessibility, social justice, equality, and environmental sustainability. She works in the clinic at Goulds in Hobart, Tasmania for the past 6 years. Monica works hard to co-create more community resilience via her community herbalism work and loves collaborating with other like minded folk to work toward the greater good. She founded the Hobart chapter of Herbalists Without Borders, which collaboratively runs 3 free clinics in Southern Tasmania. She coordinates the herbal growing side of the Rocky Top Collective Farm, and is involved with Radical Herbalists Australia. In this interview we explore her journey of becoming an intern at Goulds, working in their farm, apothecary and clinic. We explore her motivations and inspirations behind the amazing work that she does. Monica shares her passion about teaching home herbalism and how she would really love to see people reclaim the word "herbalist' and the identity of being a herbalist and bring it back to it just being people working with the medicine, growing and harvesting and making their own medicine. Her message is that anyone can be a herbalist. As a herbal practitioner, Monica is a strong advocate for folks to reconnect to their bodies and their menstrual cycles. Her main area of practice is reproductive and hormonal health, but she has other special areas of interest (listed below). With a mix of evidence-based treatments and traditional herbal knowledge, she enjoys working with folk to make sustainable change for improved wellbeing and a balanced, healthy life. Find Monica on FB: https://www.facebook.com/monicafrancianaturopath/ And on IG: https://www.instagram.com/monica_francia_naturopath/?hl=en Find out more about Goulds: https://www.gouldsnaturalmedicine.com.au/ Hobart Herbalists Without Borders: https://www.facebook.com/hobartherbalistswithoutborders/ To purchase "The People's Medicine Zine", email: hobart [email protected]