Share your skills and experience and your heart by becoming a visiting teacher or practitioner. We need experienced acupuncturists. Teach a class, help in the clinic find peace and hope each morning with the rising of the Indian sun. This is a unique opportunity to experience rural India in a spiritual setting. Contact our Clinic Director Charles Martley for more information
Volunteer Information for Ananda Nagar
Accommodation Basic private accommodation is provided in simple rooms with ensuite bathrooms. The bathrooms have either western style or Indian style toilets and a bucket for washing. There is no hot water. The rooms have electrical sockets and mosquito screens. It gets dark fairly early and electrical black outs are common in the evening which can lead to several hours of darkness.
Food The food provided is simple and wholesome. The Ananda Marga diet is vegetarian and also excludes onions, garlic, and eggs. Meals are offered 3 times a day. Breakfast usually consists of Dhal, rotis and yoghurt, and Lunch and Dinner consist of rice and vegetable stew and fruit.
Water Drinking water is taken from a local well and then filtered. We recommend you use water purification tablets to ensure safe water drinking.
What to bring A suggested list of items you might want to bring: Toilet paper Soap for clothes washing Candles Torch Mosquito repellent/coil Mosquito net Sleeping sheet Water Purification tablets Things to do in the evening, e.g. books, cards, music Electrical socket adaptor Water heater/kettle (if you wish to make tea in your room)
What to wear Please wear comfortable, practical, and culturally appropriate clothing. In Indian shoulders and upper legs should be fully covered. Loose cotton clothing is a good idea.
Staying in touch There is good mobile phone network coverage at Ananda Nagar. It is possible to buy a local Sim card however check your mobile phone is unblocked. There is an office computer which you can arrange a time (depending on availability) to use for accessing the internet.
Vaccinations Please ensure you have all the correct vaccinations for your stay. Malaria is also known in the area so malaria tablets may be appropriate
Acupuncture resources There is a library with a good selection of acupuncture books available for reference; these include books by Giovanni Maciocia and Deadman’s Manual of Acupuncture as well as conventional medicine reference books. You are encouraged to bring a donation of needles/moxa sticks with you if possible. Please bring your own antiseptic hand wash.
House rules During your time at Ananda Nagar you are asked to respect the community’s code of conduct.
Payments In exchange for your food and lodging we ask for a contribution of Rs 500 a day this covers our costs and contributes to the running costs of the clinic.
The local area The clinic is based within the Ananda Nagar community near the village of Pundag, about 1km away. It has a few shops providing basic provisions and a twice-weekly market. There nearest large city is BokaroSteel City where there is more choice for shopping.
A Volunteer's Account
It was during my first year of acupuncture training that I read about Ananda Nagar and a trip to India became an incentive for getting through all the assignments and exams. A month after finishing my three and a half years of studies, I set off to participate in this remote, rural community project in North East India.
However before taking on the busy clinic, my first challenge was to transport the 25kilos of needles donated to the project by acupuncturists and two very generous needle manufacturers; Oxford Medical Supplies and Acumedic. I had to haul the needles on to airplanes, taxis and trains but amazingly glided through immigration without raising an eyebrow. Luckily there was always an entourage of porters ever ready to assist and all the hard work was warmly appreciated by the clinic on arrival.
The first day at the clinic was an intense experience. I had imagined that I’d probably ease my way in by observing in the diagnosis room for the first day or so. I was wrong. After being introduced to some of the team I was shuffled into the diagnosis room which was already full of patients and their families. Here the lead acupuncturist, a wonderful man called Joydev, was taking a diagnosis and beckoned us to join in. He very helpfully started translating main complaints and symptoms, I was also invited to take pulses and look at tongues. From time to time, he would tell everyone who wasn’t the patient to leave the room but this never lasted very long and before long a throng of villagers were crowded in to the small diagnosis room once again. All was going fine and I was invited to suggest treatments which were generally accepted and added to. After about an hour one of the other practitioners working in the treatment room next door came in and told me to start treating as there were so many patients now waiting to be treated. I was immediately terrified - this had not been the plan.
The practitioner handed me the point prescription and some needles in a tray with bits of cotton wool drenched in Dettol and waved at a patient for me to jump in. I was completely flummoxed and looked at the point prescription without being able to remember where any of these points where - my brain was apparently frozen. Referring to the points guide was clearly not a strategy that was going to work in this busy environment. Well, I managed to get my act together enough to muddle my way through. The local practitioners kept on coming over to make adjustments to my point location and one of them said - ‘You are so slow!’. But they gave me some great tips on point location and after treating a few patients things began to start to click and I felt more confident.
After the initial intensity of the first couple of day I started to adapt to the rhythm of the clinic. The number of patients attending fluctuated; on busy days there might be up to 70 patients but on other days only 30 and occasionally there could be as few as 10. The events of village life dictate the these variations, at harvest time the villagers need to be in the fields cropping their rice, and then there are many local festivals and political rallies.
With time I began to recognise some familiar faces of patients who I’d already treated and the patients became less wary of me. A lot of the patients came with similar complaints of knee, back and neck pain with headaches and dizziness. Lack of nutrition and heavy work in the fields was a common cause of health issues. There were also quite a few stroke patients, a lady with a goitre the size of a small melon and a heartbreaking number of babies and small children with mental and physical disabilities. Helpfully there was a small library at the clinic with some useful texts which I used to research conditions that were new to me and to broaden my point selection choices.
Besides the clinic, there was plenty of time to explore the local area. At that time of year (November) the landscape is relatively lush and the temperatures pleasant which made it ideal for some lovely walks along the river where there was an amazing variety of birds.
My month long stay at the Ananda Nagar was an incredibly rich time and it provided excellent acupuncture experience. It has helped improve my practice especially in terms of diagnosis, point knowledge, point location, and needling technique. A real highlight of the experience was the interactions with the patients and the local practitioners whose warmth and hospitality was very humbling.
