| Health self-sufficiency in Chitoor (AP) |
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In Sahanivasa's health programs, Ayurvedic doctors and herbal medicine experts instruct, validate existing practices, demonstrate and help women to identify, collect and prepare herbal medicines. Cultural performers raise awareness on HIV and follow up by counseling villagers and referring cases to the district HIV clinics. Travelling to remote villages and SC / ST colonies, I learned more about how the poor people live. I met women who collectively learned to address interconnected issues of the health of individuals and community. Villagers could not depend on expensive western medicine and doctors. By the time an average person starts earning, the onus of the family is on him/her, and s/he forgoes all the basic necessities such as clothes, having food once a day, to feed the family.
With these villagers Sahanivasa works towards a proper health care system. Sahanivasa project director Suria Rajini, with 15 years of experience in herbal and ayurvedic medicine, with her team of volunteers and dynamic project co-ordinators, Rajamma and Gaddappa, trains poor villagers to make medicine and re-generating the medicine sustainably.
I was personally touched by the dedication of Suria Rajini and her husband, P. Chennaiah who works for people's rights to land and livelihood resources. Together they are working towards real independence in the post-independent, landlord driven society. When they received me at bus station in Tirupati, a holy place second only to Vatican City in terms of revenue generation, I could only ask what revenue went into the murky swamps around the bus station and the poorly maintained sanitation system.
As we rode past beautiful landscapes, sugarcane and mango plantations, we spoke about the people's struggle for fair wages and against bonded labour. When we reached Piler Mandal, the villagers were eagerly waiting for us - more for Suria Rajini.
That day they would create eight different kinds of herbal medicines for ailments ranging from headache to foot pains to intestinal problems. Of all the women in the training, only one had studied till high school. Her job was to keep the records.
Coordinators Rajamma and Nagappa were ready with four thousand rupees worth of ingredients such as Garlic, Ginger, lemons, Camphor, Oil and bottles.
 Making medicine is a meticulous but a fruitful process. The villagers cut lemons, powdered ginger and smashed garlic and amla. They took turns smashing dry Amla and ginger using long sticks and rock. They boiled the leaves of traditional plants with oil for eight hours. While Rajamma explained the process of making each medicine so flawlessly the villagers took notes, and volunteer noted down all the questions and answers, to distribute later to the villagers.
After a delicious lunch in the sweltering heat, we got back to work. Kids recited some folk songs to keep up the momentum. I took the chance to interview few people. The kids had rashes on their necks and kind of allergy on their hands. They said it had been months since they saw the government doctor, whose duty is to visit the village on a weekly basis. Fortunately that day we had prepared a medicine for this problem.
To close the program the Sahanivasa volunteer team took up drums and bells to perform folk dance-dramas on themes of health, AIDS awareness, child education and nutritional diets. They portrayed the plight of migrant labourers, and how adultery and unsafe sex leads to the spread of AIDS when they come back home. Another dance encouraged the villagers to apply for ration cards and health services.
On the way home, Suria & Chennaiah told me how they got involved in this work. I felt the story of The Monk who sold the Ferrari moving in front of my eyes.
 The next morning, after a delicious breakfast made of vegetables from their garden, we visited other villages, often stopping on the main road and walking to villages which had not even a sand road. And no water tank, school, cemetery or hospital. Here the project work is to collect the problems and present them to the MRO Mandal Revenue Officer (MRO) or Collector. Sometimes police arrest the poor for harvesting on land held under benaami (alias) names. Chennaiah and Surya work to get these people released, and also the illegally registered land released through the land ceiling Act, and distributed to the landless. I met some people who had received land this way. A woman in Reddivaripally proudly showed me the crops she had taken from her first season working on her own one acre of land.
I also visited villages where people had had a similar health training six months before. We saw 16 kinds of herbal medicine made by the villagers with the aid of SAHANIVASA for their local use. Two villagers maintain the supply and distribute the medicines. People told me that they were using the medicines for cough, cold, foot pain, and stomach ailments. People who worked all day barefoot in the fields applied one of the herbal medicines daily to prevent cracking and consequent ailments.
Sahanivasa works with the root causes of the situation and helps the villagers to find and practice solutions to deal with their troubles. Their dreams for a just society bring cheer in the lives of the villages.
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