Promoting the value of local food

Do you prefer to eat local food or imported brands of food bought from supermarkets?

Most of you may prefer the imported stuff coming in colourful and eye-catching packages, but the local food items are just as or even more nutritious.

Now there are plans to launch several programmes to educate the public and schoolchildren on the value of consuming local (native) food. This is an initiative of Indigenous Medicine Minister Tissa Karaliyadde, which is in line with the Saru Ratak Suwa Hetak project.

The project had been directed by the President, who had realised the nutritional and health benefits of native food. An exhibition and conference will be held at the BMICH in September to promote these food items.

Lectures for schoolchildren will be part of this exhibition. Several nutritious herbal drinks are also expected to be introduced at this exhibition.

Most people now rely on artificial food and drinks which contain substances that are harmful to humans as well as animals.

Native products don't pose that kind of danger on those consuming such products. But the problem is that most people do not know how these food items can be prepared, and how nutritional they are.

Some of the actions that will be carried out as part of this project to promote native food are the display of posters and the distribution of leaflets. Competitions for schoolchildren and native food exhibitions will also be held in rural areas. The project will be linked with the Osu Gammana project started in many districts.

Sri Lanka is home to about 900 traditional rice varieties, but most people are not aware of them.

The project plans to improve the quality of such items and promote them for public benefit.

Most countries in the developed world have reduced the usage of artificial food.

Day to remember the Adi Vasi

The International Day of the World's Indigenous People will be celebrated for the 12th time this year, on August 9.

Some of you may be wondering who indigenous people are. But you all know them. We have them in Sri Lanka too. They are the Adi Vasi or Vanniyela Aththo (forest dwellers). Their history goes back to over 16,000BC, and they are descendants of the island's original occupants.

They now live mainly in the areas of Heningala in the Maduru Oya national park and the jungles of Mahiyangana. Most of them have now been settled in villages, as a result of being driven out of their natural habitats, due to the expansion of cities. However, they continue to retain their age-old customs and traditions.

The threat that indigenous peoples around the world face is extinction. Due to the expansion of cities and the resultant loss of livelihood and their way of life, and new generations leaving the communities seeking a modern life, their numbers are fast dwindling. The numbers of our own Vanniyela Aththo have gone down from 4,510 in 1921 to 2,361 in 1946. A count on their numbers hasn't been done since 1963.

August 9 is the most appropriate day to focus on their problems, as well as their history and culture. The United Nations General Assembly decided to celebrate this day on August 9, by a resolution which was passed on December 23, 1994, during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, which had started on December 10, 1994.

In April 2000, the Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution to establish a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which was endorsed by the Economic and Social Council in July 2000. The Forum discusses indigenous issues related to culture, economic and social development, education, environment, health and human rights.

This body, which met for the first time in May 2002, gave voice to the indigenous people in the global community. Its recent session focused on the indigenous people achieving the Millennium Development Goals, especially eradicating extreme poverty and ensuring primary education for all.

The observance of the Day and the Decade, by the UN, governments and the people signal concern for the rights and welfare of the indigenous communities.

Over 300 million indigenous people live in about 70 countries around the world today, and account for four per cent of the global population.

It is estimated that one out of every 20 people of the human family belongs to one of these communities.

They contribute much to the richness of their cultures. The challenges they face include poverty, disease, dispossession, discrimination and denial of basic human rights.

Indigenous people are remarkably diverse, as individuals, and groups, but are bound together due to the common grievances they have faced over the centuries.

They also share their respect and reverence for the natural world and spiritual practices.

In their societies, elders are respected as carriers of wisdom, women are respected as carriers of language and culture, and children are respected as carriers of identity transmitted to future generations.

Time for youth

The life of a human being starts with childhood. Then, before he or she reaches adulthood, there is another stage that he/she will go through... youth. This will be a beautiful period in your lives, and must be made the best of.

Youth in the prime of their lives, is what will be celebrated on August 12, on International Youth Day. The theme for this year is 'Tackling Poverty Together'. During the 10-year review of the World Programme of Action for Youth, governments around the world had decided that the situation of youth living in poverty needs attention.

According to the World Youth Report of 2005, over 200 million young people (18 per cent of the total youth population) live on less than a dollar a day. Over 88 million youth are unemployed, while most work for low pay in hazardous conditions.

Youth however, have been overlooked in poverty reduction strategies. Education is a solution to poverty, but poverty has been a barrier for education.

The aim of the Day is to promote wider awareness of the programmes targeting action to be taken around the world in areas like poverty, education, employment, hunger, drug abuse and juvenile delinquency. It intends to strengthen the role of youth in their national poverty reduction projects.

The proposal to name a special day for youth had originally been put forward by the young people themselves. This proposal recommended by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth, in Lisbon, Portugal in 1989, was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 17, 1999.

The Assembly recommended that public information activities be organised to support the Day as a way to promote better awareness of the World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond, which the General Assembly had adopted in 1995.