Centro Ashé

At Centro Ashé Herbs & Education we are grateful to build cooperatively to keep the knowledge of our food, herbal medicine, seeds, and our healing traditions alive and vital within our communities. Our belief is that plant medicine is the people's medicine, everyone of us comes from a lineage of plant people, and this knowledge is our birthright. We are a community rooted educational center, our goal is to keep our classes affordable & accessible while honoring the time, energy, and knowledge our instructors come to share. We celebrate the richness and diversity of folk herbalism while providing practical knowledge that can support each of us, our families and communities. We honor the incredible knowledge present within our communities and our teachers are all local herbalists and plant people in the communities we work, the knowledge is right here! By attending our programs and buying our products you are supporting this cosmovision, creating alternatives to the dominant paradigm, and you are helping us to provide employment to local herbalists and to keeping our dynamic educational center & teaching gardens running. We are constantly seeking to strengthen our programs, create expanded intergenerational learning environments, and honor the community that grows along with this process. As a small mission driven business we truly rely on community support of our programs, and so it is with true gratitude we thank you for your interest and support, we look forward to building with you!

In Costa Rica our work is based in the South Caribbean Coast, an area known as Talamanca, home to indigenous groups including the BriBri, Kekoldi, Cabecar as well as Afro-Caribbean and Chinese communities who came to work building railroads, work on banana plantations, and as fishermen. Over the years this area has become increasingly diverse with residents from virtually all over the globe. Our programs focus on the sustainable local agricultural food system as well as traditional herbalism as it is practiced across the incredible cultures that inhabit Talamanca. Our classes are held mainly at our center in Manzanillo, Costa Rica.