The Ofure (Pax) Integral Research and Development Initiative (OFIRDI), nicknamed Pax Africana, is an evolution of Paxherbal from an organisation that which deals mainly with traditional medicine, to Pax Africana, a centre that explores healing beyond biological or physical health, to integral healing.
ACIRD firstly develops, and continually enhances, a research-to-innovation process that leads to social innovation, in theory and in practice, while at the same time focusing on the systematic documentation and dissemination of such. Secondly, it continually co-evolves, together with others, both within Africa and without, an approach to Communitalism, substantively so to speak, transcending the prevailing approaches to capitalism and communism, which have caused chaos rather than harmony, underdevelopment rather than development, in Africa.
ACIRD evolved from a cooperative inquiry group set up at Paxherbal in 2014. One of the objectives of ACIRD is to institutionalize and practicalize the theory of Communitalism, bridging the gap between research and innovation, between knowing and doing, between sanctuary and laboratory, and between community and the university. ACIRD aims to establish new models for doing research in and for
Africa. It seeks to assert the right of Africans to speak in their own language and metaphors, as expressed in line with the African proverb, ’Until the Lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter’’. ACIRD institutionalizes knowledge creation in and for Ewu village, Edo State, Nigeria and Africa as a whole via a new theory called Communitalism, based on the four aspects of “Integral Healing” or Pax:
Pax Communis, Pax Spiritus, Pax Scientia and Pax Economia, altogether called Pax Africana.
The Uniqueness of the theory of Communitalism is its grounding in a particular,visible context. We call it a philosophy-in action, or research-to-innovation, a combination of indigenous (local) with exogenous (global) knowledge.