Farmacia Viva

The Cosa Buena Foundation has been collaborating with Indigenous youth from the Zapotec community of San Antonio Cuajimoloyas in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca for the past four years to support Farmacia Viva, a student-led project born during the pandemic.

When the global pandemic struck, high school students in Cuajimoloyas recognized the urgent need to rescue and preserve local knowledge of traditional medicine and healing plants passed down by community elders.

Today, Farmacia Viva is a living, intergenerational project fully integrated into the local high school curriculum. Each year, the senior class stewards the project and then passes their knowledge, research, and responsibility on to the incoming class—ensuring continuity, leadership, and long-term impact.

The project includes:

A medicinal plant garden

Interviews and research with elders about traditional medicine

Documentation of plants, recipes, and healing uses

An ecological initiative that repurposes recycled plastic waste from the community into garden retaining walls and seedling supports

An irrigation system to sustain the garden

A cocina de humo (traditional kitchen and processing space) where students prepare teas, tinctures, and remedies to share with visitors and tourists