• Projects
  • Friends of Hope, Nilgris Region, Southern Central, India

    Grass roots organisation running farmer training facilities and HIV/AIDS awareness and wellbeing programme in over 20 villages.

    09/11/2009
    8580
     

    MPT began donating to this grass roots organisation in 2002 helping towards their seven year project creating HIV/AIDS Awareness amongst Tribal groups in this remote and desperately poor area of the Nilgris Region. They have already set up a successful women's health and support outreach programme. Under the administration of the awesome and dedicated Welsh nurse, botanist and healer Vanya Orr, their community/medicinal/nutritional herb garden and farmer training facilities and outreach HIV/AIDS awareness and wellbeing programme now extends to over 20 villages. Dead land has been reclaimed and they have become self-supporting. Farmers in much of India are in crisis, topsoil is disappearing at the rate of 10 tons per acre per year, due to chemical fertilizers which have made the land infertile and non-water retentive and this land has been declared by the Indian Government to be officially DEAD. Using much forgotten local expertise, an Organic Herb Garden was established and a collection of over 400 medicinal herbs and plants grown, all with economic and nutritional value. A thriving business distilling essential oils was set up and this blue print has now been extended to 58 villages and Vanya Orr’s extraordinarily dedicated work has received UN recognition. A broken community has been reborn! 

    Due to the social stigma, HIV/AIDS education comes under the title 'General Health'. By forming Women’s Health and Village Support Groups, The Friends of Hope have achieved remarkable results within the community and they are expanding this 'General Health" programme into Higher Secondary Schools and prisons covering reproduction, puberty,life changes, the challenges of adolescence and basics of STD/s HIV and AIDS.
     
    MPT started making small donations in 2002 and 2004, 2005, 2007.
     
    ACTION : A little dosh goes a long way here and you might even be interested in going out there as a volunteer.
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