WAHALKADA: ETHNO-MEDICINE AND LOCAL KNOWLEDGE IN SRI LANKA
INTRODUCTION
The Rajarata Development Foundation (RDF) and World University Friends (WUF) in collaboration launched the Wahalkada project in 2017 to address social and health needs of the Rajarata community including other areas. Wahalkada’s individual history pre-dates the project, however. Initiated in 2012, it functioned as a treatment center that sought to treat a wave of illnesses washing over Rajarata including kidney diseases, cancer, paralysis, diabetes, ulcer, neuro problems, catalepsy and epilepsy, infertility and many more. At present, the treatment center houses around more 1000 resident patients, and continues to serve its purpose amidst enormous difficulties, with the invaluable voluntary service of its staff. As methods of treatment, the treatment center has combined Sinhalese medicinal tradition, Buddhist cultural heritages of treatments, and Hindu forms of worship (particularly involving Goddess Pattini). The use of vernacular knowledge for resource management, medicinal technology, and dietary habits (among other things) makes this a truly unique venture in the island’s post-colonial medicinal history. Conducting empirical academic studies about Wahalkada appears to be of extreme timely importance in this light. As a more short term measure to help sustain this effort, RDF and WUF together are taking steps to provide the clinic with facilities such as wheel chairs, urinal bed pans, urine bags, clutches, beds, and so on.
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