The Malaria Free Diocese project is a dream of the Parakou Archdiocese (North Benin), led by its pastor, His Excellency Monsignor Pascal N’KOUE, Metropolitan Archbishop of Parakou. Pastor and congregation dream that malaria will be wiped out in the Parakou archdiocese, not only for Catholics, but for all people living in the ecclesiastical province of North Benin.
Following a promising first initiative of a Malaria Free Christmas in 2018 and then the Malaria Free School project in 2019 in collaboration with the DDEC (Direction Diocésain de l’Enseignement Catholique), the Diocese Without Malaria project started in early 2021.
All these projects were led by the UNIV Center which is home to the Parakou House of Artemisia and has experience and expertise on medicinal plants in the field of health ecology.