Dinah Veeris
2 Courses • 3 StudentsBiography
Dinah was born on April 20, 1939 as Lidwina Marciana Veeris in the Zaantjessteeg in Otrobanda on the island of Curacao. She worked for many years as a teacher in Curacao, St Marten and in the Netherlands. In 1982 she started to learn about herbal medicine from the elderly people of the islands of Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire. She studied with twenty elderly for five years and in 1987, she studied at the California School of Herbal studies with Rosemary Gladstar. After she returned home she quit her job, traveled to Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba and Indonesia to experience different medicinal ways of healing. Dinah has written two books: Green Remedies and Golden Customs and Afrikantj and in 1991 created a sanctuary ‘Den Paradera’, dedicated to collecting trees and herbs from all over the island. With more than 300 species medicinal herbs, tourists from all over the world visit her gardens where they find explanation about herbs and their uses, they learn about the culture of the island and the songs.
Throughout the years, Dinah has experienced her island becoming dryer and dryer. This has initiated a second journey to collect seeds, this time not only for her own garden but to stimulate people to plant their own. With her crew they taught last year more than 1000 children how to plant seeds and how to do cuttings. She stimulates young people to work preventively and not to wait until becoming sick. Dinah is assisted greatly in her work by her sons Shastri and Danchelo.
