Health Cell 2016 report

At the 2016 AID conference, volunteers talked about building the capacity of AID to work holistically through issue-based cells.  Volunteers interested in agriculture met during the conference and formed the agri cell.  Volunteers interested in restarting the health cell started meeting on the phone and google hangout in July.  Some highlights of health cell activities in 2016:

“Eat like a lion”

“Tell that dietary tip,” Uma Babusekhar urged Sundari Vishwanathan.  “Eat like a lion and …”

Sundari obliged.  While most of us might use a simple phrase such as “eat foods that are high in fiber,” the trainers at Vasantha Memorial Trust have a more colorful way of putting it.  I gently requested them to reconsider their word choice.  Grinning brightly, they effused, “Eat like a lion and eliminate like an elephant.”

Millet for all

We left Potnal yesterday morning, visited an NGO en route and reached Kadiri at 8 pm.   Dinesh met us near the bus stop on his motorcycle and we followed him to his home, with a brief stop at Earth 360, the millet processing factory that he set up, which we were pleased to hear, was doing well.  Involved in every step of promoting millets, linking farmers and consumers, the company had grown and was breaking even while upholding the values with which it began 5 years ago, holistic health for people and planet through sustainable agriculture rooted in diverse, local, whole grains (also called coarse grains).  In brief: millets for all, health for all.  

NGOs are the eyes and ears of the National Human Rights Commission – Chair

“NGOs are the eyes and ears of the National Human Rights Council,” said Cyriac Joseph, inaugurating the public hearings on Right to Health conducted by the National Human Rights Council in coordination with the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan.

“NGOs are the ears and eyes of the NHRC” – Cyriac Joseph, NHRC Chair

I perked up at this point which came up after he talked for several minutes about the “players in the field of protection of human rights,” highlighting the role of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches of government and describing how and why the NHRC was constituted and what its mandate was.  He was to repeat this statement several times in the course of his 25-minute address, the latter half of which brought out a bit of the idealist in him.