Community Outreach

A major component of Pitchandikulam Forest’s work involves working with communities to empower them towards self-sustainability and involve them in the process of eco-restoration.

Currently we work in 25 villages throughout the Kaluveli bioregion in the following areas:

• Environmental education
• Establishing of women’s self help groups (SHGs) and student eco-clubs
• Establishing rural enterprises promoting sustainable livelihoods
• Planting Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF)
• Research-gathering: baseline, community and bio-resource surveys
• Sustainable agriculture workshops
• Health camps
• Awareness programs (addressing topics such as health, hygiene, water, sanitation and HIV/AIDS)
•  Income generation initiatives

We are also involved in the protection and development of local traditional healthcare through  the use of indigenous medicinal plants. To ensure that the knowledge, skills and plants are not lost, we undertake a number of activities within local communities. They include:

• Setting up enterprises promoting livelihoods based on working with traditional medicinal plants
•  Setting up of indigenous plant health dispensaries and household kitchen herbal gardens
•  Facilitating traditional healers to pass on their knowledge to others through meetings and visits to extant indigenous forest areas
•  Training women’s groups, schoolchildren, teachers, youth clubs, other NGOs and government departments in many aspects of eco-restoration work -with an emphasis on the revitalising of local health traditions
•  Workshops on the preparation of herbal remedies to cure common ailments using plant material from the Pitchandikulam nurseries and gardens; and visits to established medicinal gardens

We help the local communities to develop their infrastructure and knowledge of the region. By collaborating with village leaders, healers, self help groups, youth groups, NGOs, regional government departments and students, Pitchandikulam is deeply involved in environmental issues which impact local populations.

• Environmental Education
  1. Environmental Education Centre, Nadukuppam High School
  2. Coastal Environment Education Centre
•  Women’s Empowerment
  1.  Self help groups (SHG)
  2.  Rural enterprises