The Co-Impact Sourcing® initiative in Nepal allows doTERRA® to harvest the best wintergreen available for making Wintergreen essential oil. In order to thrive, wintergreen requires a cool climate in a shady, heavily forested area, with very specific soil conditions.
.
To harvest wintergreen, harvesters must travel through steep, muddy mountainsides, removing wintergreen leaves from the shrub. Many of these harvesters are women, who leave their families early in the morning and carry heavy baskets of wintergreen leaves on their backs until they are nearly overflowing.
.
Harvesters in these rural areas don’t have many options when it comes to providing for their families. The ability to find work has become even more difficult in recent years due to natural disasters in Nepal, which have severely limited economic opportunities.
.
Many of the distillation units were damaged in the earthquakes, making it difficult to produce Wintergreen oil. In addition to repairing the distillation units, doTERRA also helped provide temporary housing tents for those whose homes were completely destroyed. The efforts of the Healing Hands Foundation® and CHOICE Humanitarian helped the harvesters and other villagers get back on their feet and move forward after these catastrophic events.
To learn even more about doTERRA’s Co-Impact Sourcing Initiative in Nepal 