Mooligai Segaripoor Mattrum Saagupadiyalar Sangagalin Koottamaippu
In the initial phase of Kalasm, the women in the group conducted a survey to understand the spending patterns of the households in the villages where they intended to work. The survey showed some startling numbers such as 30% of the household expenses were on medical purposes. CCD’s efforts were then channeled towards giving better control over health to the migrant community. This was achieved by developing Kitchen Herbal Gardens (KHG) in large numbers that reduced the dependency on doctors and over the counter medicines. This activity, however had unexpected but positive fallout; the solution to an age old problem faced by the local medicinal plant gatherers. Earlier, the gatherers were denied the right price, either due to excess supply in the market or poor quality of plants gathered. Hence the gatherers had to depend entirely on the middlemen to sell their material. To address this issue CCD promoted a federation of the Medicinal plants gatherers and cultivators and registered it as a charitable trust named Mooligai Segaripor Matrum Sagupadiyalar Sangangalin Koottamaippu – MSMSSK. Though it was formed and registered on 3rd August 2005, it started functioning in its earnest by November 2006
To create community owned & managed, medicinal plant resource based enterprises of grass roots level collectors and cultivators in order to enrich their activities by sustainable utilization of Medicinal plants resources and improve the well being of MSMSSK local communities.
Objectives of the Trust:
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To promote conservation through cultivation & sustainable collection of medicinal plants, through persons engaged in generating income and employment from medicinal plant collection and cultivation as well as providing health care services to village communities.
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To promote consumer education and awareness about use of medicinal plants, medicinal plant resource based products and their quality parameters.
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To encourage solidarity among the medicinal plants cultivators / collectors on all issues connected with the common good of medicinal plants cultivation / collection, processing and marketing.
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To secure organised action on all or any of the matters relating to medicinal plants cultivation / collection, processing and marketing.
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To bring about a greater sense of awareness among the medicinal plant cultivators / collectors about the recent developments, trends and innovations pertaining to medicinal plant based community enterprise.
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To bridge the communication gap that exists between medicinal plant cultivators / collectors, processing and markets which has led to exploitation of the medicinal plant cultivators / collectors in rural areas.
The groups are scattered in southern districts of Tamil Nadu such as Madurai, Dindigal, Trichy, Ramanthapuram, Sivagangai and Theni.