Shodhgram – Our Campus
The headquarters of SEARCH has been named ‘Shodh-gram’ (village of the quest). It is located in the forest 17 km from the town of Gadchiroli. Shodhgram is a beautiful medley of Mahatma Gandhi’s Sevagram Ashram and a tribal village. Established in 1993, after extensive consultations with the local Gond tribal community, it incorporates and expands on design traditions displaying a unique architecture and ambience. The muddy coloured walls of the buildings are plastered with hand marks, similar to the early tribal houses of the Gond tribe.
A temple of Maa Danteshwari, the supreme Goddess of the tribe, stands at the entrance, without whose blessings the tribals consider healing impossible.
Shodhgram spreads over 45 acres distinguished into a 20 bedded hospital, office, residential and agricultural area. The campus also includes guest houses, a research centre, training centre, museum, award hall, training hostel, mess and a full-fledged library of more than 10,000 books and magazines, and has complete WiFi access. The residential complex of 56 houses accommodates a close-knit community of around 100 people. There are two playgrounds for young children and youth for physical activities and a gymnasium.
One of the spectacular attractions of Shodhgram is Padmaja, a pond for ground water conservation. It not only adds to recreation and aesthetics but also supports organic farming carried out in the agricultural area for self-sustenance.
The residential community of Shodhgram is one big family living together and uplifting each other. Inspired by Gandhian practices, we meet twice a week for shram-damn and 6 days a week to pray and share experiences, thoughts, views and current affairs. During Shramdaan, by means of cleaning the campus, we serve our community. Our prayers are integrally based on the principle of ‘Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava’ (equality of all religions), thus affirming unity in diversity. All the festivals are welcomed!
Shodhgram is a pilgrimage site for social activists, researchers, and public health experts from all over the world.
Gadchiroli district is situated on the eastern border of Maharashtra, bordering Chhattisgarh in the East and Telangana in the South. The district headquarter, Gadchiroli, is about 175 km south of the nearest city Nagpur. Gadchiroli is one of the poorest and least developed districts in India. While rest of the Maharashtra and India is marching ahead, Gadchiroli district with nearly one million populations, 36% of which are tribal, is lagging behind in various parameters of human development index. The HDI (2002) of Gadchiroli was 0.22, the lowest in the State whereas the HDI of Mumbai was 1.00. People already suffering from poverty, illiteracy, backwardness is further handicapped by the plethora of diseases such as malnutrition, malaria, anemia, sickle cell anemia, childhood mortality, tuberculosis, snake bites, and non-communicable diseases like hypertension, diabetes, back pain and stroke. To address these, physician to population ratio in Gadchiroli is 1:5032, whereas the ratio for India is about 1: 1500. The government health system is inadequate because of thin population density and not seeking of health care by the tribal population. The unwillingness of the doctors and the health service personnel to serve in the district is a major hindrance.
