Empowering the Community: Wealth for All
Number 17 - December 1998
The role of botanic gardens in the popularisation of science and environmental education is well recognised. Botanic gardens can play a major role in educating people on
Empowering the Community: Wealth for All
Number 17 - December 1998
The role of botanic gardens in the popularisation of science and environmental education is well recognised. Botanic gardens can play a major role in educating people on the sustainable utilisation of the local biodiversity particularly in the areas of health care and income generation. Success stories of programmes and experiments that can be emulated in this line are rare especially for the botanic gardens in developing countries. During the past four years, the Tropical Botanic Gardens and Research Institute has developed two action programmes; ‘Herbs for All and Health for All’ and ‘Plants for All and Wealth for All’ as part of its outreach programme. These programmes were designed to develop the productive potential of the under-utilised floristic wealth of the nation, and actively involve community members including the educated, unemployed youth and home makers.
A healthy population is the real wealth of a nation and it is the collective responsibility of individuals, families and governments to ensure the community’s health security. Food security for people is the basic requirement to their health security. People should get an adequate quantity of nutritious food, clean and safe drinking water and pure air to breathe. The TBGRI educational programme addresses this central theme and has launched various action oriented programmes to aim towards conservation and the sustainable utilisation of biodiversity.
Prior to launching the programmes, background information on the socio-economic and resource profile of the villages was obtained. This provided information to enable effective evaluation of the program to take place. The data collected included information on the:
Following this assessment four traditional villages from the Thiruvananthanpuram District, Njaraneeli; Bharathannoor; Pampuchathamannu; and Panangode, were selected to be involved. The villages are situated within a 20km radius of TBGRI and the majority (80%) of people belong to farming communities owning small pieces of land (0.1 - 0.5ha) and cultivating rubber, paddy, pepper and tapioca.
The villages mostly consist of Christian, Muslim and Hindu groups, the majority of whom are literate.
Developing the Approach – Stage 1
A team of TBGRI scientists comprising of botanists, Ayurvedic experts and sociologists visited the villages and met several influential people i.e. the President and members of the Panchayat (village council), school teachers, office-bearers of art and sports clubs and other non government representatives. During the visit, the TBGRI proposed action plan was discussed.
Encouraged by their positive response, TBGRI initially organised an exhibition and a series of seminars in the villages and then invited the 25-30 representatives from each village to TBGRI for a two day awareness programme.
On the first day of the programme, scientists gave lectures on:
The second day involved a tour of the garden. The aim of this being to increase the villagers’ understanding of locally available medicinal plants from the common village lands, sacred groves and nearby forests. The villagers were encouraged to collect wild material from the common village lands and the garden according to their needs and medicinal and indigenous plant use were highlighted during the tour.
The tour included a visit to the demonstration garden where a model for community management of bioresources and a home garden have been developed.
Participants were pleased to learn how to take care of their nutritional and primary health care needs using plants.
The model home garden is 200m sq with a three room thatched hut centrally located. A well has been placed in one corner, a medicinal and ornamental plant garden in the front courtyard, and the vegetable garden at the rear. The medicinal plant garden contains 17 selected plants iincluding Hibiscus, Centella asiatica, Aloe, Ocimum, Coleus, Asparagus and Adhatoda. The vegetable garden plants include muringa, papaya, Solanum, Amaranthus, Colocasia, yam, Capsicum, pepper, ginger, mango, and jackfruit.
After the two day awareness programme the village representatives were requested to select a core group of 10-15 persons from each village. It was highlighted that this was a self help programme aimed at empowering people to take the best care of their food, nutrition, hygiene and health. A key component of the programme was to encourage people to explore more productive ways of utilising their local resources by applying science and technology with a view to gaining economic prosperity by using the local biodiversity.
Training the Trainers - Stage 2
The villagers returned to their villages, organised meetings and selected the core group for an intensive one week residential training course at TBGRI. The core group consisted of ten people, mainly women (32 women and 8 men), from four villages. The training was conducted in two phases, the first phase emphasised primary health care, while the second focused on conservation and sustainable utilisation of the plant biodiversity.
The topics addressed during lectures were:
Demonstration and practical training in the preparation of compound drugs was provided. This involved members of the core group collecting plants from TBGRI and preparing and processing the home 