01Ask in your own words
Five short questions: who it is for, what is bothering them, how long, regular medicines, and any warning signs.
CHIKARA Health · Southern Africa · Early access
Traditional remedies, checked for safety first.
The CHIKARA Health Companion is a private guide to the plant remedies of Zimbabwe and Southern Africa. Tell it how you feel in your own words. It checks for emergencies, your medicines and pregnancy before it shows you anything.
For clinics and programmes: CHIKARA Wellness demo →
How it works
Four steps. Safety is the second one.
The Companion works the way a careful friend would. It asks, it checks, it shows, and it helps you keep track.
02Safety check, on your device
Emergency and crisis wording is caught first. Pregnancy, babies and your medicines filter what is shown. Nothing is sent over the internet for this step.
03See remedies, graded honestly
Each remedy carries an evidence label: traditional use, limited evidence, or backed by research. Unsafe matches are held back, and the app tells you why.
04Keep a private journal
Note what you tried and how it went. Export it, or erase it, any time. It lives on your phone, not on a server.
Safety first
Knowledge without safety is incomplete.
Every remedy in the Companion carries a label for the kind of evidence behind it. Some matches are held back entirely.
Traditional useDocumented community practice, labelled as such.
Limited evidenceUse is known; formal evidence is incomplete.
Backed by researchMeaningful investigation sits behind the claim.
Safety considerationsInteractions, pregnancy flags, conditions to avoid.
Seek professional careEmergency pathways. A human, not an app.
No herb cures HIV, cancer, TB or type 1 diabetes. The Companion says so plainly, and never suggests stopping prescribed treatment.
Babies under one year: no herbal preparations by mouth, and never honey.
One tap to emergency help, on every screen, working without a connection.
Inside the app
Calm on the surface. Careful underneath.
Real screens from the Companion. Swipe to look around.
Everyday mode
Plain language first. Short answers, large text, what to do and when to get help.
- Good for families and community health volunteers
- Read-aloud support
Detailed mode
The same facts at full depth: compounds, preparations, evidence notes and protocols.
- Good for students, herbalists and nurses
- One switch in the logo menu
Botanical reference
Remedies worth understanding.
Three of the 44 profiles, as the Companion words them. Names in English, Shona and Ndebele.
Ginger
Zingiber officinale
SN Tangawisi · ND Tangawizi
One of the best-studied traditional remedies, used for nausea and digestion. A review supports its use for pregnancy-related nausea.
Aloe
Aloe vera, Aloe ferox
SN Gavakava · ND ikhala
The clear gel is used on minor wounds and burns. The bitter latex taken by mouth is a strong laxative and is not for long-term use.
Sutherlandia
Lessertia frutescens
Also called Cancer Bush
Despite its common name there is no clinical evidence it treats cancer, and it may lower antiretroviral drug levels. The Companion says this up front.
The library is still growing and has not yet had formal review by a registered clinician or pharmacist. Use it to start a conversation with a health professional, not to replace one.
Works offline
Put it on your phone. No app store.
Open the Companion once with a connection. After that the remedies, safety data and emergency sheet work without data. Install it to your home screen so it opens like any other app.
You are inside another app. Installing will not work here. Open this page in Chrome or Safari first.
Android (Chrome, Samsung Internet, Firefox)
- Open the Companion and tap the browser menu.
- Choose Install app or Add to Home screen.
iPhone or iPad (Safari)
- Open the Companion in Safari and tap Share.
- Choose Add to Home Screen, then Add.
Computer (Chrome or Edge)
- Open the Companion and look for the install icon at the right end of the address bar.
- Firefox and Safari on a computer cannot install it. Bookmark the page instead.
Not working? Check the address starts with https://, reload once, wait about ten seconds, then try the menu again.
For clinics and programmes
CHIKARA Wellness
The same vendor builds engagement platforms for wellness centres and health programmes: client channels, appointments, referrals, safety escalation and audit. The demonstration below is a full-behaviour simulation with simulated data. It is not live clinical software.
Client access
Web companion, service discovery, booking paths and approved information.
Safety engine
Keyword prefilter, scored classification, urgent escalation, human acknowledgement.
Care operations
Appointments with conflict checks, referral states, SLA-aware escalations.
Governance
Approved knowledge, hash-chained audit, role-based access, Trust Centre.
WhatsApp and SMS
The same pipeline on the channels people already use.
DHIS2 and national layer
Interoperability and multi-site intelligence, phased and not claimed as live.
Roadmap
Software we ship, software we phase.
Honest sequencing beats feature theatre. What works today is labelled as such. Everything else is labelled planned.
NOW
Health Companion 3.1
Conversational intake, 44 plant profiles, safety gate, Emergency sheet, journal, offline install.
NOW · DEMO
CHIKARA Wellness simulation
Auth, roles, safety scores, appointments, referrals and audit chain on simulated data.
NEXT
Clinical review
Registered clinician and pharmacist review of the corpus before wider release.
NEXT
Shona and Ndebele interface
Full interface translation, reviewed by native speakers.
NEXT
WhatsApp Cloud API
Production send path and templates on the same message pipeline.
LATER
DHIS2 and native apps
FHIR-aligned events, multi-site intelligence, offline sync for staff tools.
Questions
Frequently asked.
No. Everything is informational. It matches your words to topics in its library, and it sends urgent patterns to emergency help instead of offering remedies.
Only to open it the first time. After that the remedies, safety checks, Emergency sheet and journal work offline. A live reasoning provider is optional and off by default.
Your journal, medicines and profile stay on your device. If you choose to connect a live provider, only the text you type and the matching library excerpt are sent. Emergency messages are never sent.
Not yet. Formal review by a registered clinician and pharmacist is on the roadmap, and the app says so on its home screen. Please treat it as a starting point for a conversation with a health professional.
A demonstration of a digital engagement platform for wellness centres and programmes, built by the same team. It runs on simulated data and is not live clinical software. Open it from this page and sign in with any demo role.
Start here
Know what you are using, before you use it.
Private by design. Made for Southern Africa.
Open the Health Companion