Parvathi Nagarajan
Parvathi is an expert on local, medicinal plants, a leader in biodiversity conservation and a strong promoter of women’s entrepeurship in rural Tamilnadu. Her first teachers in the knowledge of medicinal herbs were her parents, both traditional Vaidyas. Her forefathers were country doctors and her grandmother was a plant healer who taught her about herbs and their uses.
Her parents wanted her to quit school after class 5, but she managed to finish and became the first woman graduate in her village in Tamil Nadu. After graduating, she did a few small jobs until she was offered the role of a Herbal Trainer at Pichandikulam Forest, an environmental body in the Auroville bio region on the coast of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
She moved to Auroville and started her work at Pichandikulam forest where she has been working for 22 years, learning from and contributing immensely towards the development of the the medicinal forest which is now an educational and research paradise for biodiversity conservation enthusiasts.
She shares her traditional herbal healing practices through herbal cooking sessions with the idea that food is medicine. Through sessions at Primary Health Centres, Anganwadis and women self help groups, Parvathi has trained nearly 30,000 people. She is a training faculty and educator at Bhoomi college and has hosted trainings at many organisations including SLI Keystone Foundation, Rakhi Foundation, Tribal Federation, Western Ghats Farmers Association, Namalwar Foundation, SOS, Guru Nanak College, VIT, SEVA Gratitude Farms and MAIAM NGO. She was awarded by India Biodiversity Authority in 2018 for sustainable use of biological resources and a Senior Fellowship award from Bhoomi college for herbalist and natural healer. She has been covered by leading media channels for her great work on plant-as-medicine concept.
Parvathi has successfully incubated several rural managed enterprises that are based on herbs and herbal products. One such initiative is Sri Siddha Forest Herbals, a store created to promote local women entrepreneurs from the villages to learn and make market ready natural products. She strongly believes that creating environmental leaders is an emergency for saving our planet and that merely changing consumer patterns or creating herbal products is not enough.
Her journey to being an environmental leader in rural Tamilnadu started when she was a child actively engaged with her grandmother in identifying herbs, collecting them and making oils, pastes and recipes for herself, family and friends. At the age of seven, she also remembers questioning a woman god in her village about the disparity towards woman while going around the village with her grandmother. Growing up as a poor woman in an orthodox village, Parvathi faced many economic and social challenges. She learnt early the struggles of women in her village. She endured it all and emerged with the passion to support women from local communities through the potential of medicinal plants. Today she actively works towards sustainable healthy practices in communities, development based on local natural resources products, women’s empowerment and environmental leadership.
Parvathi’s early calling and dream was to surrender to the environment and nature and serve others through it. She is a fighter who has surrendered. She trusts that plants don’t need people but that people need plants. She dedicates every day of her life to continuous service by not only taking from nature but also giving back to nature. Plants have made a huge impact on her life and she values every single plant. She promotes the simple fact that a tree will give you in abundance for generations even if you plant just one tree in your lifetime.
She believes that she has a long way to go, learn and give back to her God, which is Nature. She is campaigning the concept of eat-what-you-grow to pass on this practice to younger generations for a future with food security and sustainably. Her dream is to reach as many people as possible, both nationally and internationally, to convert them to eco-humans to retain a healthy future for all.
Achievements:
- Trained 50 village level women entrepreneurs
- Educated more than 20,000 domain-specific individuals in the last twenty years to be environmental influencers and innovators
- Created more than 80 herbal products in food and cosmetics using local human resources and women entrepreneurs
- Worked to create a unique medicinal forest at Pichandikulam Forest in Auroville for the last twenty two years.
- Played a crucial role in creating sustainability awareness, plant medicine, herbal products and promoting food as medicine concept to thousands of people nationally and globally.