Connecting the Dot..Women's Wellness and Happiness

The idea behind this information dissemination and discussion session was to bring together the experts from various field of medicine to start a dialogue on women health and wellness which probably would help in joint action on the concerned subject. Previously during an interaction with Dr. Vijaylakshmi, she shared many details which were more or less very scary to say the least, so it striked to us to give the experts from different traditional practices of health care which are unfortunately deemed as alternatives, a platform where they can discuss about the women health. It is a deliberate effort on behalf of SLI to disseminate information on women issues from the understanding and personal experiences of the experts so that a meaningful and comprehensive women’s wellbeing index can emerge, which can act as a guiding principle for women’s wellbeing programme in SLI and elsewhere.

For more details click here:  Report

Connecting the Dots for Women's Wellness & Happiness

நீடித்த வளர்ச்சிக்கான இலக்குகள் மற்றும் குறியீடுகள்...

நீடித்த வாழுமைக்கான நிறுவனத்தின் அடுத்த படைப்பாக நீடித்த வளர்ச்சிக்கான இலக்குகள் மற்றும் குறியீடுகள் குறித்த கையேட்டை வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.

நீடித்த வளர்ச்சிக்கான இலக்குகளை சென்ற வருடம் உலகத்தின் 192 நாடுகள் ஒப்புக்கொண்டன. இவற்றை இன்னமும் நமது ஊருக்கும், வளர்ச்சிக்கும் எவ்வாறு நடைமுறைப்படுத்துவது என்று பலரும் சிந்திக்க ஆரம்பிக்கும் காலம் முதல், இந்த இலக்குகளை தமிழில் முதலில் மொழிபெயர்த்து இது நமக்கு எந்த அளவிற்கு உகந்தது என்பதனை உணரவேண்டும் என்ற நோக்கத்தில் இந்த படைப்பு வெளியிடப்பட்டுள்ளது.

நமது நிறுவனத்தில் திரு. ராஜகணேஷ் அவர்கள் இந்த மொழிபெயர்ப்பை செய்துள்ளார். திரு. சத்யராஜ் அவர்கள் இதனை அழகாக வடிவமைத்துள்ளார்.

Interviews: Siddha Doctor, Mrs. Vijayalakshmi - "Modern lifestyle gets us closer towards extinction!"

22^nd June, 2016 an interview with Dr.Vijayalakshmi, B.S.M.S., M.S., Siddha specialist and Psychotherapist. Dr. Vijayalaksmi has been practicing Siddha medicine since 1989 in Puducherry, most of her patients are from semi-urban and remote villages of Pondicherry as well as Tamil Nadu. She is popular and successful in treating the patients with Arthirits, Bronchial Asthma, Infertility, Fibroids and PCOD complaints. She has also published many health related articles in health magazines. 

What is unique about Siddha medicine?

It’s the part of Tamil culture and our very own form of traditional healing treatment. There is a belief, that it was taught by Lord Shiva to Parvathy, Parvathy to Nandhi and from Nandhi to Sithar Agasthiya and Sithar Agasthiya to his followers and so on. The information since then is being shared and passed down from generation to generation via various notes and hints: written palm leaf, stone sculptures etc., It is the only form of treatment where herbs/plants, extracts from animals like “Thathu Jeeva Vagupu” (extract derived from garden lizard) is used for curing Paralysis; metals/heavy metal like mercury is used as a substitute for steroids and poisons, gold, silver, pearl etc., is used for curing various diseases and disorders. Siddha is considered to be one of the safest form of treatments, which has the potential to cure all sorts of diseases/disorders even for cases which are considered as incurable,  without any side effects.  This is what makes “SIDDHA” unique in the field of medicine.

You spoke of your concern due to changes in our lifestyle since the 80s specially the last decade, can you elaborate the same? 

Around 80’s because of the absence of purely polished carbohydrate rich fine rice, people only consumed nutritious yellow colored fat rice. Every home had their own cattle (dung was used as compost) and garden in their backyard, because of which there was availability of seasonal vegetables/fruits, so there was no requirement to buy vegetable/fruits from the market, they rarely visited market for purchasing clothes, jewels etc., but not for buying vegetables/fruits. Moreover they had a well balanced nutritious diet menu. All these habits made that generation free from poisonous fertilizers/pesticides and hybrid crop varieties; they all lead a healthy, stress free life and they hardly suffered from any diseases, most importantly they had a pollution free environment.

In case of dress materials they predominantly used handloom, cotton and silk, which is more convenient for our climate and good for our health. The major mode of transport were cycle, horse or ox chariots: all these are eco-friendly as well as a source of livelihood for communities. During this time humans co-existed in nature in a friendly and well balanced manner. Above all the social integration and joint family system, which have the potential for: sharing the work/emotions, love, affection, security, respect, protection, moral values etc., especially for the children had a very good space.  

In the past decade, because of the trend of nuclear family- intimacy, love and care between a couple is lost  and in societal point of view, there has been loss of social integrity, increase in rate of crime, fast and fried food culture, more number of restaurants, hotels, more use and dependency on electronic gadgets: especially cell phones, TV, computers etc.- all these has created a very modernized society with no cultural, traditional and moral values, and on the way we have ignored and lost values for which we were once recognized globally. 

What are the major health effects that you have been witnessing since 1990 till date that are of  concern?

In the mid 90’s, 2/10 or 1/10 of my patients had delayed gestation and the possibility for pregnancy was 100%, but now 7 out of 10 patients are totally infertile (0% possibility), either they go for AID/AIH (artificial insemination), test tube baby or surrogacy. It is shocking to see such a drastic increase of infertility in such a short duration of time. This is the condition of the current generation and people must be aware of it. Apart from infertility, there is also increase in patients with Uterus Fibroid, Ovary, PCOD, Irregular cycles, Cancer and HIV complaints. In case of youth and children, obesity, eye problems, loss of concentration and grasping power, ulcer, skin diseases like psoriasis, depression, feeling of insecurity, Post traumatic stress due to educational pressure or sexual harassment and Psychological behavior disorders has been registered. All this is due to westernization and modernized way of lifestyle.

What are the remedies for these problems?

I can't guarantee, but following these steps is worth trying

1.  Going back to Joint family system
2.  Every home must have its own cattle and garden
3.  Use cycle or a common mode of vehicle for transportation (reduces pollution and fossil fuel usage)
4.  Decrease in use of electronic gadgets especially cell phone.
5.  Children should participate in outdoor games instead of indoor games -so that both their physical and mental health remains active.
6.   Slowly try to follow our traditional and cultural values.

You have mentioned about the increasing shift towards modern-urban life style, according to you what will be the consequences of this shift?

Within next two generation or so, the existence of human race is questionable. As we go on depending and using more and more toxic chemicals for pests, vectors and disease control, instead of controlling the targeted organisms, we make them more stronger, gradually boosting up their immunity power and increasing their population cum survival persistent.

Technologies can also prove to be dangerous, for instance, due to cell phone towers, the rate of birds especially sparrow (a predator) population are reducing rapidly, by means of which we are actually eradicating a key component from a food chain, thus affecting the whole ecosystem, which ultimately lead to increase of various insect population that are resistant to toxic chemicals. Who knows the consequences of this….? The nature has to decide- “Survival of the fittest”.

What do you think about SLI and its role in society and rural communities?

The programmes of SLI are designed to realize the importance of nature: how important it is to lead a sustainable life using the locally available resources. Apart from this, it also teaches us the value of our culture and tradition.

This interview was done and documented by Padmavathy.A, In-house Researcher at SLI.

SLI Monographs on Sustainable Agriculture in Tamil

Interviews: Education can be free and fun and more relevant - with Ms. Meenakshi of Puvidham rural school

An Interview with Social Activist cum Educationalist Meenakshi Umesh by Dr.Padmavathy

It has been quiet a while since SLI had a guest faculty but after attending Mrs. Meenakshi Umesh's interesting-interactive session on need of Organic farming and her ideas on education -the institute filled with joy and fun on 28 April, 2016,it felt like the wait was worthy . It was a great privilege for all of us in SLI to have the opportunity to interact with a social educationist, who has truly dedicated herself to child education, organic farming and society’s welfare. 

A Brief Introduction about Our Guest Faculty

"Education has to be fun not burdensome", based on this simple and effective concept, works a registered organization -Puvidham Rural Development Trust. The organisation works on developing effective organic farming techniques and has successfully created a humane and child-centered education environment for children in the Nagarkoodal area of Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, India. Headed by a kind soul and a down to earth person, Meenakshi Umesh…. Born in U.P and studied in Mumbai. Meenakshi turned into a social activist in her early twenties while opposing child labour . Professionally Meenakshi is an architect and her partner -Mr. Umesh, an engineer from IIT-Madras. They met during their stint in Auroville near Puducherry, and later, decided to pursue their interests together and bought a land in Nagarkoodal in 1992- a dry and discouraging area but now turned into a flourishing forest/organic farming fields, which was possible only due to the hard work of Meenakshi and her family along with local communities. During this process, the couple while working with the community saw the compelling need for a good school in the area, and so Meenakshi started working towards a dream school- where there would be no teachers, no punishments and no examinations.. A School with lot of fun… finally her dream came true in the form of Puvidham Nursery and Primary School and the Puvidham Learning Centre (upto 8th standard), a new version of education working towards the vision of learning along/ via nature… 

1. According to you, where does the traditional farming practices stand today, do you think that the importance of traditional knowledge in farming is being lost from our culture?

Yes, it is. Even the farmers at the age of 60’s blindly believe and say that farming can’t be successful and profitable without urea and chemical fertilizers. This is mainly due to various government schemes cum policies, modern science and technologies that is reflecting in the farmer's mind. Unfortunately they have been successful in making the farmers believe in Chemical farming. The modern technology based thought indoctrinates them to believe that without the applications of the chemicals there can be no farming, no food, no income and no livelihood. They have more or less forgotten the concept of sustainability and sustainable livelihood. But still there seems to be some hope, as when we sit and slowly start digging out or refresh the old memories of the farmers, they talk about the organic farming practices which they practiced in the past. For instance, the idea of intercropping - muthukottai (castor) + Thuvari (pulses)+ Kaaramani (beans) + Solam (corn) + Saamai and multi-cropping ( Ragi+Avarai/onion/chilly in bunds) or Groundnuts + onion+ cluster beans etc., they cherish these methods as these methods helped them in getting continuous income and yield throughout the year, their fields always remained green starting from March to January. 

The traditional farming practices isn’t totally eradicated or lost from our culture but due to lack of proper recognition and encouragement it is degrading at an alarming rate…. So we must catch hold of it before we completely lose it.

2. How can we teach Organic Agriculture/farming to school children?

First, we must understand one thing -we should not push the children to learn the things that they don’t want to. We must let the kids decide whether they really want and are interested in farming. After confirming that, we can teach those who have legitimate interest in organic farming; but it shouldn’t be in a form of formal class room or via systematic curriculum based academic mode of teaching. We must teach them in a very simple, logical and easily understandable way; there is a need of modification in the educational systems- like if a kid wants to know about wheat, we can start telling from where and how it is cultivated, how does it grow, its nutritional value, its role in environmental balance etc., in a story form! When we do this teaching in the form of interaction and conversation method, the children get more information and it builds up their interest and thus they learn the concepts quickly. It need not be as a single subject(agriculture), but as a balanced multidimensional study involving science, art, statistics etc., simply everything under one roof..

3. What will be the top most 5 drawbacks in present academic institutes and their curriculum?

1. Physical activities/movements of the kids in school are totally arrested. They are forced to sit in the classroom throughout the day and listen to teachers talk, which totally ceases mental and physical activity of the children which is unhealthy for a growing child and for their future.

2. Class room seating arrangement- this itself creates discrimination and differentiation among the children. The seating arrangements must be in circular manner and teaching has to be more or less like conversation, group discussion or interaction section taking place in a natural environment.

3. We must ask and let the children decide what they really want to learn and are interested in and then teach that in an interesting mode of education like via singing, drawing, dancing, storytelling etc., so the children are able to grasp the basic core of subjects in an easy/understandable way, this more effective and creative form of education.

4. Subject based academic curriculum has to be changed. At least till 6-8th standard there shouldn’t be any formal subject based systematic curriculum way of teaching. They must learn it from their own environment and field experiences through field exposure visits. This way we can develop self-motivation, self capacity building, equality, unity and honesty among the children.

5. Conducting exams must be stopped, instead of that we might have self-evaluation method for assessment. This will be more appropriate and useful for the student’s future. 

4. What do you think of Right to education act? According to you what are its positive and negative values?

The most positive aspect is it’s opened a way to various Social, Vedic and Cultural oriented studies, the major drawback is that they are primarily focused and are encouraging systematic-academic way of teaching. They doesn’t support and encourage innovative, spontaneous creative schools, although these kind of schools are the breeding ground of new innovative/feasible ideas. Creation such schools needs encouragement and social recognition and acceptability by the society, especially by the government.

In this modern world, concept of advanced systematic mode of teaching and curriculum is widely accepted /followed and meanwhile people are gradually losing their cultural and traditional values. This is how the people miss out the importance of already existing indigenous traditional effective, eco-friendly and scientifically advanced form and way of living - surviving in nature, which is being practiced for a very long time by our ancestors. For example, sustainable livelihood which has come up very recently as a trend has been practiced by the Tribal communities for a long period of time; they have been co-existing along with the natural environment for over decades. But neither the government nor the society recognize them and encourage their way of living, instead they are destroying their livelihood. These kind of already existing sustainable livelihood systems need to be saved and protected and learn from them: their way of living, understanding the basic concept of Sustainable livelihood – a way of conflict free co-existence.

5. What do you think of SLI?

As far as my observation, I strongly believe SLI and its programme has the full potential in establishing and building the concept of sustainability in the society in the nearing future. I was able to feel immense positive energy and vibration in this institute. MY HEARTY WISHES TO THEM….

More about the work of Social Activist & Educationalist Meenakshi Umesh -Puvidham Rural Development Trust: www.puvidham.net.

Coming up at SLI