In Chapter 6 we described the first phase of the programme that the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) initiated in 1998—2000. In this chapter, we focus on the second phase of the programme.

Phase—II: Rapid Assessment of LHTs (RALHT)

The objective in phase II was to develop a rapid assessment protocol to identify the best, most effective home remedies for the promotion of primary health care. In order to meet this objective, a series of five RALHT workshops were conducted in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The exercise was called ‘rapid’ as it did not involve detailed laboratory or clinical studies and could be completed in a relatively short period of time.

We used a participatory approach to conduct this community-based assessment. The research group was multi-disciplinary and comprised local community members, folk healers, practitioners of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Allopathy, as well as botanists and researchers. We based the assessment on the practical experience of local communities, supplementing it with the experiences of practitioners from the indigenous codified streams, who heal with the support of the classical literature of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani, as well as other documented pharmacological findings.

Planning meeting on RALHT

As a prerequisite to RALHT protocol development, a workshop was conducted to finalise the methodology for assessing local health traditions (LHTs) at the household level. The participants were representatives of the Indian systems of medicine, public health and pharmacology.