By MALATHI MITTAL | MANAGING TRUSTEE , THE EARTH TRUST NILGIRIS
Melkowhatty Health Programme April 4th to 22nd June 2016
When Vanya Orr our Founder started the first Health programme, the target audience was a woman from the village who perhaps was allowed to study up to the 10th standard before she was married off and sent away. In her “In-law” village, she stayed in the back ground and only after repeated visits to the village and talking to the Head-man would she be allowed to attend the Health Module programmes.
Today’s programme attendee has definitely passed High school at least, some of them hold a basic under-graduate degree. But other factors remain the same—we still have to navigate the village hierarchy with patience and tact. The one big change is that because of information being disseminated by the State Government through radio and by various TV Channels on Health and Nutrition, the women are informed Our work has become more interesting and challenging. This has helped us grow as well.
The Melkowahatty programme was inaugurated on 4th April 2016. The size of the audience augured well. But the number of young women who participated regularly were seven in number. We have decided to carry on regardless of numbers, because even one informed mother/wife makes a difference.
They learnt about their bodies and nutrition. This is part of our regular modules which covers all the systems like skeletal, reproductive, urinary system, skin, digestive, nervous etc. This usually needs 13 sessions. The theory classes are held in the mornings and the post lunch sessions are for practical demonstrations and interactive sessions. These are handled very well by our team who are conscious that we are not teaching students but informing women and empowering them to take responsibility for their health. There is a lot of banter. This also serves to prevent everyone from staying in a mild state of post-prandial stupor including our Health Team!!
While the women were learning about their skeletal systems, one of the participants –Bharathi- around 30 years old was sharing with the class her difficulties with her back pain. Mala and Meera – our health team members, taught the class basic yoga postures, breathing techniques and pressure points that relieve pain. We always tell the women that the best time to deal with any ‘dis’ ease is right at the onset. If it persists, they go to a doctor or Vaid. She-Bharathi- diligently follows the simple regimen and now she is pain –free. At Kilkowatty, Amudha- 50 years old constantly needed to wear a belt to help deal with the pain of a prolapsed disc. She attended our programme, learnt to prepare Helichrysum oil and peacock oil. She has been using. With mild yoga asanas and regular application of the medicated oils, she is able to be ‘beltless’ for extended periods of time. She prepares Ashtachoornam and gives it to her family members and friends--- she is our ultimate success story. She has learnt, has imbibed and is now sharing it with more people. Helichrysum grows wild here. The truth is – practically every single plant that grows here has medicinal value------------.
As mentioned in our project, we distribute medicinal plants/ herbs /saplings to each participant. These are grown in our Resource farms at Kollimalai and at Holabettu.Kollimalai is where Kothas- a Tribal community lives. They were traditionally blacksmiths and later became silversmiths. But it is a dying art now. Most of the land there is owned by them. These lands cannot be bought or leased by non-Tribals. However, there are pockets of privately held ‘Patta “lands and the Earth Trust farm at Kollimalai is one of them.
The women with their herbal gardens!!
The first week of June brought a lively young visitor- Mihika Chachani – a Field intern of the first ever Global Giving India team. In her short visit, accompanied by Nimmi –our Project Director, she had a jam-packed schedule and we at Earth Trust took her to some of our main project sites. We have received valuable feed-back which will become part of how we function in future.
End June- 22nd to be exact, we started our ‘Advance ‘course as well. Those who participated were taught reflexology, massaging techniques, making basic oils for home use from plants and herbs that grow around their houses or from the medicinal herbs distributed by Earth Trust to the women. They practice on each other needless to say. They learnt to prepare Ashtachorrnam and Trikadugu choornam. Both are age old regularly used recipes from Ayurveda. As the name implies in Tamil, Aaduthoda (Aduthoda Vasica) is a plant whose leaves are so bitter, that even goats do not eat them. It grows very comfortably her in the hills. The women were taught to make syrup from them for use in bronchial infections. Vidya – about 30 years old has a 5 year son who was suffering for nearly a fortnight with a dry cough which no amount of cough syrup helped. She was reluctant to use the Aaduthoda syrup for her child—naturally, as she would her whole extended family to contend with had anything untoward resulted! She finally did and the kid improved dramatically. The tragedy of our times is that all these simple concoctions had been part of routine home remedies for centuries and now we need to‘re’ discover them.
A base –line survey of the village is underway. We are planning to conduct a basic health camp in the village with the assistance of a big teaching hospital from Coimbatore
We are meeting with village Headman and committee members to discuss holding a Medical in Melkowatty.
Our next programme starts in Nanjanadu.
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