Shine Divakaran, 48, an IT professional turned social entrepreneur, is on a mission to popularise locally-sourced, sustainably-produced food. His initiative ‘Eat for Health’ (E4H) is trying to bridge the widening gap between the food we consume and its producers. He promotes therapeutic farming for children with special needs and plans to establish a connection between farmers and consumers.
“I used to be an engineer at UST Global at Technopark. Things went south when I suffered a stroke in 2014 and from then on I became very health conscious. I decided to purchase vegetables only from a known local farmer. All I wanted to know was the source of my food. Gradually I realised that I can do more for the health-conscious community and formed an NGO, Eat Healthy, in 2017. I left my job and started working full time for this initiative,” says Shine Divakaran.
“Many of us, professionals and regular people alike are getting disconnected from nutritious food, active lifestyles and the natural world. This leads to physical and mental ill-health. The conventional food system is causing severe health issues. This is my way of giving back to the community,” says Shine. Now the NGO is on the spadework to launch a successful community model of farming as part of the initiative. “Our plan is to allocate one-acre land and a farmer for every 60 members joining ‘Eat for Health’ initiative.
Our target are consumers from the city who are unable to source vegetables from local farmers,” says Shine, who is the technical consultant for the ongoing therapeutic farming programme of Helping Hands Organisation (H2O). Executive council member Ajeesh C Philip of H2O, which offers a focal program to the less privileged with special needs, says therapeutic farming is doing wonders for children with special needs. “We have around 40 children with special needs. And all of them are actively taking part in the farming activities. We launched this in July 2019 and we sell our yields in a local supermarket nearby,”
adds Ajeesh.