The region plagued by hunger and malnutrition, poor water, and hygiene, an inventive approach to reducing infant mortality and improving maternal health and increasing access to local health facilities needs to be promoted extensively. 

On one hand, India has almost 12,00,000 medical practitioners with authorised degrees, whereas, on the other hand, one to two million local traditional healers and priests in the community are revered for healing various ailments and casting off evil spirits. Notwithstanding the efficacy of the medicines made available by government medical centres, the Korku tribal community of Madhya Pradesh and Melghat region continues to trust their traditional healers who have always been an integral part of Korku village communities. Despite all the efforts of the Government to improve the health systems, the tribals willingly resist going to health centres or availing the institutional benefits, especially from the Anganwadis (village creche) for their children and mothers aggravating the health situation of the community.

Caritas India along with KDSS through its Sabal programme is bridging the gap by making the traditional healers and priests an instrument of change in the fight against severe chronic malnutrition growing among mothers and U5 children of the Korku tribe.

The organisations are closely working with 36 tribal healers and priests resulting in successful referrals of 223 patients with different ailments to health centres for treatment. 328 families were convinced to seek medical support and consult medical practitioners through 185 collaborative visits with grassroots institutional workers like ASHA, Anganwadi Workers and Auxiliary Nurse-Midwife.

“Samanvay” – District Level Dialogue Meeting of Korku Tribal Healers and Government Department is an effort of Caritas India and KDSS to appreciate and recognize the contribution of these tribal healers and priests in reducing hunger and malnutrition among the Korku community. The meeting also provides a platform where government departments especially the Ministry of Women and Child Development and Ministry of Health and other like-minded organizations come together and develop effective plans in consensus with these healers and priests to address the malnutrition issues of the Korku community.

The half-day programme was organized on 28th September 2022 in Khandwa district and participated by more than 100 participants including tribal healers & priests, grassroots government institutional workers viz. Anganwadi workers, ASHA and Supervisors, mothers of the children who were referred to health centres, local NGO partners, media representatives and departmental staff. 

The programme was organized in presence of the District Project Officer (ICDS) – Khandwa, Asst. Manager (ICDS), Child Development Project Officer (CDPO), Chief Health Officer (CHO) – Khandwa, Senior Journalist and Administrator, Khandwa Dioceses.

Robin George, Programme Lead – Caritas India appreciated the contributions of each and everyone person who helped Sabal in addressing the malnutrition problem of the Korku community. He recognized the contributions of the community who trusted our guidance and knowledge, the grassroots institutional workers who extended their timely support in all the initiatives of the programme and most importantly the opinion makers who contributed to the behaviour change of the community.

In this keynote address, Fr. Jayan Alex, Director of KDSS spoke about the Sabal programme which has been instrumental in transforming the lives of the Korku community. The programme has contributed intensively to ensuring adequate nutrition from the food intake for pregnant & lactating mothers, children and adolescent girls. Sabal promoted the development of nutrition gardens, plantation of nutritionally important trees, preparation of localized nutritional recipes and shift from cash crop to food crop cultivation to ensure the nutrition of the families. This initiative is a measure to recognize, how the support of the representatives of the community can help in reducing malnutrition among children.

In his special address, Fr. (Dr.) Jolly Puthenpura, Asst. Executive Director – Caritas India emphasized the effective coordination and collaboration between the GOs and NGOs in addressing the problems of the community. Sharing his years of experience working in the Korku-predominated areas of Amravati he expressed that Bhumkas (tribal priests) and Padiyars (tribal healers) have a special place among the Korku community and harnessing their support in the Sabal initiative is an innovative step. He appreciated the willingness of the Government functionaries to come for such dialoguing meetings can enable him to strengthen rapport with the community.

“As a government representative, it’s our duty to work for the community but it’s your responsibility to ensure that your community remains healthy and is not affected by malnutrition and other diseases,” expressed Mr. Vishnu Prasad Rathod, District Project Officer (ICDS) Khandwa. He also recognized the tribal healers and priests for their contributions in supporting their grassroots Anganwadi workers and in motivating the community to avail the services of the centre. He said these joint visits along with our grassroots team will help us to build a strong rapport with the community.

Dr. Sharad Hirnay, Chief Health Officer (CHO) Khandwa sought the support of these catalysts of Sabal in addressing the issue of malnutrition and anaemia from the time of pregnancy period itself. He emphasized the 1000 days nutritional strategy and requested intensively work on the awareness and counselling of pregnant mothers.

Senior Journalist and Media Representative Khandwa, Mr. Asif Siddique shared his experience about the interactions with these tribal healers and priests. He appreciated Sabal for creating a behaviour change among these healers and priests and taking their support in referrals of patients to health centres. He also praised the contributions of Caritas India and KDSS team in addressing the hunger and malnutrition problem of the tribal communities of Khalwa, Khandwa.

The other dignitaries who addressed the participants included, Fr. Augustine M, Administrator Khandwa Dioceses, Ms. Navika Shivhare, Asst. Director (ICDS) and Ms. Neha Yadav, CDPO (ICDS).

The dialogue meeting also included the experience shared by tribal healers and priests, institutional workers receiving support from these healers and priests and testimonial sharing from the mothers of recovered children who were referred by these healers and priests. These representatives of the community were felicitated by the dignitaries.

The meeting concluded with the submission of a memorandum by the representatives of tribal healers and priests to CHO and DPO Khandwa demanding for recognition as “Aarogya Mitras” and incentives for the referrals of the children to nutrition rehabilitation centres (NRC).