Website to promote traditional healers in NE to be launched

Our Correspondent Imphal, June 6 (EMN): To promote and conserve the practices of the traditional healers in Northeast India, a website will be launched within a shortest possible time, officials of the Anthropos Foundation India (AIF) New Delhi said. “The idea is to create a platform for the traditional healers by developing their profiles with achievements etc so that we can take forward the issue for better understanding and development,” said the AIF founder chairperson Dr. Sunita Reddy. The goal is to go beyond documentation and give recognition to the traditional healing practitioners, he added. AIF is currently undergoing a study on folk and tribal healing practices in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Manipur which houses many folk and traditional healers. A number of folk and traditional healers including around 20 from Manipur are registered for the initiative. “In our study we found that most of the folk and tribal traditional healers are from poor backgrounds and most of them felt that everyone including the researchers are benefiting from their traditional knowledge and practices,” Reddy said who is also associated with the Centre of social medicine and community health, Jawaharlal Nehru University said. She observed that the contributions of traditional healers to the primary healthcare system can be channelised if the authorities concerned develop healers’ huts and herbal gardens at the village panchayat levels. Considering the importance of conserving the traditional knowledge on various forms of indigenous healing practices which are widely being used in the rural areas in Northeast states, director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, (IGNCA) New Delhi Dr. Ramesh Gaur, expressed desire to hold theme based discussion or workshop on development of indigenous healing practices by inviting local healers, in New Delhi. Dr. Gaur was here to attend a day long national workshop on ‘Folk and Indigenous practices in Manipur: Healers Voice’ at Manipur University on Monday. The workshop was held under the aegis of Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, MU in collaboration with the AIF and IGNCA with an objective to go beyond documenting and to promote and support folk healing practitioners in Manipur. Nearly 70 per cent of the population in rural areas of Manipur are still dependent on traditional medicines.