THE COVENANT CENTRE FOR DEVELOPMENT (CCD)

 Location:

Get a list of plants Found in CCD in Covenant Centre for Development (CCD) is a well known Medicinal Plants Conservation Park (MPCP) situated in one of the tail end villages in the border area of Virudhunagar District, a drought prone district of TamilNadu. Its primary focus is on the development of socio-economically disadvantaged rural communities.  CCD started its programme for ex-situ conservation of medicinal plants and revitalization of local health traditions in the year 1995. As a part of this programme, a Medicinal Plants Conservation Education-cum-Herbal Health Center is established in 32.5 acres. The MPCP consists of an Ethno Medicinal Forest (EMF) with a live collection of more than 268 medicinal plants species, demonstration garden with 12 themes and 250 species.  A District Medicinal Plants Information Center is developed with a collection of herbarium specimens of 753 species, seed specimens of 257 species and raw drug specimens of 240 species.  It has a nursery with a capacity to raise and supply 192,000 saplings.  Through medicinal plants conservation education programme it has organized 10 school clubs, 18 exhibitions, and 15 health camps, biodiversity conservation contests in which 84 teachers and 4668 school children participated.  One of the thrust activities of CCD MPCP is to enable the rural communities to achieve self-reliance in primary health care through the Kitchen Herbal Garden (KHG). The KHG programme has reached 2730 households, providing training to 4006 women. Through KHG programme, more than 127,000 medicinal plants have been supplied and grown in 2730 kitchen herbal gardens, 10 school and 10 community gardens and 5 temple gardens.  CCD has organized Nati-Vaidya conferences and conservation education programmes targeting school children and created awareness among wider public.   With the experience of having undertaken a few medicinal plants income generation programme, CCD has initiated a trial run for collection of medicinal plants from the local common lands with the involvement of the local community based organization called Maha Kalasam.  It has also started assisting in the establishment of demonstration plots with the help of 16 farmers to try out the cultivation of 16 species of medicinal plants.  Other major activities Community health- Siddha and folk Clinic Economic empowerment of rural community especially women  Income generation programmes (charcoal making, basket weaving, collection and processing of medicinal plants raw drugs) Tamilnadu afforestation programme and Cultivation of medicinal plants