Pundag, India-This extremely poor rural area of India, where even the most basic health needs of the population have been untreated, is now the site of an incredible training and treatment facility for Acupuncture. And, the services are free! This is a place where, just eight years ago, Acupuncture was an unknown or distrusted form of treatment, and where health care in general was a haphazard, intermittent and fairly unsuccessful process for the very poor population.

This is where a clinic was started eight years ago by a German Acupuncturist who was treating the poor and using the facility to train students. Quickly she gained the trust of the local community and was treating 25 to 40 patients every morning, five days a week. She relied on the generosity of a few international grants to support her program.

Four years ago I heard of this clinic and decided to go there for a few weeks to help out. I was as overwhelmed as I was inspired at how the community had embraced this form of medicine, and how dramatic were the results achieved.

This is a place where patients really understand the concept of patience: families walk for hours in the hot sun or in the cold wind and then patiently wait hours more to be seen and treated. They come from all directions in a 15-mile radius, sometimes carrying their children, sometimes bicycling, sometimes walking the one mile from the nearest train station.

This is a place where both acute and seriously chronic conditions drastically affect the overall quality of life for patients. These patients are in serious need. Generations of malnutrition have taken its toll in the form of all manner of pain in joints and muscles, severe and chronic digestive and bowel disorders, skin and degenerative diseases that are rare to see in our society.

The ones that break my heart yet harden my resolve are the children who come in with shining eyes, full of shen, yet they are not mentally or physically developing… some can’t hold up their heads, feed themselves or find the balance to walk— after four years of life. These children are the ones who need—and will benefit the most— from our help.

As I treated patients in the morning and taught in the afternoon, I knew that I would be back, and wondered how I might interest other American acupuncturists to experience—and help— this community. I knew many in America would be as interested as I am, to treat patients and to share in the quality education we receive here in America. A few months after I returned to Vermont, I was asked to assume financial responsibility for the clinic and student training. I accepted this challenge, knowing I would need to enlist the help of my fellow American Acupuncturists.

Our goals are to provide quality training to the Acupuncturists that live and work at the clinic, to run an Acupuncture Institute that will administer quality Acupuncture to the multitude of patients on a continual basis, not just when visiting Acupunctur-ists are available.

Our Institute is a three year program with international standards of courses and testing. We have a fully operating clinic, one perfect classroom, plus lots of borrowed classroom space (and we have continuing need for more of our own space). We are a non-profit project, with a staff of three full-time Acupuncturists, one Assistant and one absentee Director (me!). The clinic sees 40 to 60 patients daily. Currently the entire clinic is supported by the donations generated from one small Acupuncture clinic in Vermont.

Our clinic needs to grow, both in physical space and in equipment and supplies. We also are in need of experienced Acupuncturists who may wish to see rural India in a spiritual setting and desire to teach a class, help in the clinic, fall in love with the shining eyes of an Indian child, or find peace and hope with the rising of the Indian sun each morning.

For the future we wish to be part of a new medical school with its emphasis on an integration of studies from both Western and Eastern disciplines on the same campus. How can you help?

How do you become part of this vision of medical care for those who need it most? One way is to ask your current patients to accept a one or two dollar increase in their fees for the Ananda Nagar Acupuncture Institute, (A dollar goes a long way in India!) My patients enthusiastically support this opportunity to sponsor someone else’s treatment, especially for those not as fortunate as them. A monthly, yearly or one-time donation is another way to show your support. Another way to help is to actually get on a plane to India and visit this clinic.

I travel to Ananda Nagar once or twice a year would would gladly accompany others. And if you have another idea about how to help continue this living dream of Acupuncture in rural India, please take the first step and contact The Acupuncture Institute of Ananda Nagar through my office.

Charles Fallick Martley, Lic. Ac., is a graduate of New England School of Acupuncture, 1985. He may be contacted at (802) 496-9048. Email: aiccan@hotmail.com Tax-deductible donations may be made to: Acupuncture Institute of Ananda Nagar, P.O. Box 95, Waitsfield, VT 05673.