A LOCAL woman has spent several weeks volunteering on a health project in India.

Kate Evans from Brentor is a supporter of local charity Tamwed, which is funding a project to improve the health and welfare of tribal people, who are finding it difficult to survive in a changing environment and society.

Kate says that tribal communities are suffering from severe health problems that are largely due to a poor diet – the result of low income, the loss of traditional land and a change in lifestyle.

Tamwed’s partner organisation has set up and trained a group of tribal volunteers as community health workers. Kate saw them running awareness-raising events and clinics.

The people from one village, miles away from the nearest town in the forests of the Nilgiri Hills, told her that half of their community had left in the last two years as they felt they had no future where they were.

Kate said: ‘Project staff are encouraging tribal people to produce a range of crops to eat and to sell as well as using medicines derived from the plants that grow naturally in the hills and forests.’

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