After Helping Treat B Lakh Tribals; Doctor Couple Now Empowers Them Through Craft

Posted On Apr 19, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

When Dr M Regi and Dr Lalitha Reji, a doctor couple hailing from Kerala, decided to backpack across the country for a year to substantiate the more sensitive fields desperately in need of medical help, they encountered the unique Lambadi community, a nomadic tribe living in Sittilingi in Dharmapuri district, Tamil Nadu.

Residing near the foothills of the Kalrayan and Sitteri hill collections, this remote tribal community was cut off from the rest of the modern world. They are called the’ Malavasis’ or’ Hill People’ who found their living through rain-fed agriculture.

The doctor couple was shocked and hurt at the sheer shortcoming of healthcare equipment in the area. During ages of any medical emergency, these beings would travel to Salem or to Dharmapurimore than 50 KM away.

That’s when they decided to stay and make affordable healthcare available to Sittilingi’s two lakh beings and give them a source of livelihood to live a life of dignity and earn identification for their traditional craft.

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After completing their medical educate, Dr M Regi and Dr Lalitha Reji stated are present in a hospice in Gandhigram where they encountered people who had wandered miles for the treatment of preventable ailments like diarrhoea and childhood pneumonia.

Rattled by the lack of healthcare access, the couple decided to delve into the country’s primary healthcare setup by call countless villages and taluks. This is when they came across the community of Lambadi tribals.

What propagandized the couple further to help bring relief to these beings was the fact that this hamlet recorded an Infant Mortality Rate( IMR) of 150 per 1,000 children, the highest in all of India!

chemical fertilisers Providing treatment to the Lambadi tribals

It has been 25 years now and the couple is still moving forward with their projection, Tribal Health Initiative( THI ).

“We had no money to buy land, so we set up a small clinic on government land , nothing more than a small hut built by the tribals. We worked out of this shanty for three years, handling bringings and minor surgeries on the storey, ” informs Dr Regi

Today, the duo has come a long way from the thatched shack to a 35 -bed full-fledged hospital, furnished with an ICU and ventilator, a dental clinic, a labour room, a neonatal apartment, an emergency room, a fully functional laboratory, a modern busines theater and other equipment like X-Ray, Ultrasound, endoscopy, and echocardiography, like any other modern hospital.

delhi The hospital set up by the couple for the Lambadi tribals

Due to their incessant endeavours, the IMR in Sittilingi has now reduced to 20 per 1,000, one of the lowest in India.

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But the doctor duo didn’t stop at that.

The couple decided to venture into preserving the history and cultural heritage of the tribe by reviving the dying skill of Lambadi embroidery.

“With healthcare off to a good start, our next aim was to help the women revive their traditional ship of Lambadi embroidery. That was the opening up of the Porgai Artisans Association.

empowering Porgai In House Tailoring Unit

This unique embroidery art form is an amalgamation of decoration darning, reflect handiwork, cross-stitch, overlaid and quilting hems with borders of’ Kangura’ patchwork done on loosely-woven dark blue or red handloom base fabric.

Often mistaken as Kutchi( Kachhi) sewing because of the reflect labour, the shells and silvers are unique to this type of embroidery, with the seams being different.

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‘Porgai’, which stands for’ pride’ in the Lambadi dialect represents self-sufficiency and independence for the farmers, artisans and the community as a whole.

“We had a rich institution of paw embroidery which our ancestors did on the clothing and other daytime to date essays. In direction of experience, when we stopped wearing the traditional dress, the aircraft was lost for more than two contemporaries, ” says Neela, a part of the community.

“A majority of Porgai’s makes are made from organic cotton grown in our own villages. This cotton, untrammelled by pesticides and unpolluted by chemical fertilisers is then hand-spun, hand-woven and pigment with natural colours by cooperatives, ” justifies Dr Reji.

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“Whether it is subtly embellished Kurti or a cushion plow brightly decorated with traditional Lambadi blueprints when you buy a Porgai product, you are bringing home a nature that appraises human fervour and individual skill, ” explains Reji.

Porgai products have also drawn students from fashion designing schools as well. At least half-a-dozen interns from Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai have worked with the tribal ladies, helping them retain the ethnic embroidery duty while trying to improvise on the design aspect and impel them trendy.

Dr Regi says, “Just building and running a hospital isn’t enough. Whether it is eating healthful chemical-free food by adopting organic farming or promoting entrepreneurship among women, the key to a health society is dependent on upliftment in different fields.”

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( Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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