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| Name |
Gangaben Badabhai Manat |
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| District |
Sabarkantha |
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| State |
Gujarat |
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| Category |
Practice |
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| Title |
The Backyard Herbalist |
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| Details |
Gangaben Badabhai Manat, PTC, 54 years
Why go to the drug store for medicine when you can have many medicinal remedies for a wide variety of ailments growing right in your own back yard? asks Gangaben.
Gangaben was appointed principal of the Primary School in her village Padermahudi some years ago. Apart from being a Principal, Gangaben is also known for her vast knowledge of herbs. In order to popularize the usefulness of commonly available and frequently used herbal plants and to conserve the associated traditional knowledge for future generations, she took a wonderful initiative to establish a medicinal herb garden in her own school. It is spread over an area of one acre with 589 trees in total including 289 species of medicinal trees like ‘kalpavriksh’, ‘nagro’, ‘ardusi’, ‘tulsi’, ‘neem’, ‘amla’, ‘chironji’; 77 species of flowering trees like lemon, ‘shatavari’, ‘champa’, ‘bakul’;194 species of decorative shrubs like ‘chameli’, ‘mogra’, ‘chandan’ and 102 other species of trees. Description of each plant and its uses have also been displayed through name plates (indexed by both botanical and common names).
Hundred and fifty students in her school maintain a register of the usefulness of each of the plant in the garden. They also take care of these plants and water them every day before their classes start. She gives class on environmental studies every week to educate school children in identifying different types of herbs and their uses.
She recalls that throughout her childhood she lived a disciplined life inside an ‘ashram’. The Ashram was surrounded by herbal plants all around. This led her to explore more and more about these plants. She also appreciates the support received from her husband from time to time.
She does not directly treat people but educates them about different uses of plants. She also keeps on updating her knowledge register on medicinal herbs and experiments with them for different purposes. Her future plans are to establish such gardens in other village schools also and to open a medicinal herb shop in her village.
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| Volume No. |
Honey bee 21(2), 9,2010 |
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| Call Number |
20205 |
