Latest news with #HEAL
New Straits Times
07-08-2025
- Health
- New Straits Times
UMS leads Sabah's athlete development revolution through genetic technology, data intervention
KOTA KINABALU: Universiti Malaysia Sabah uses genetic analysis and health data monitoring in the performance tracking and development of athletes in Sabah. Its vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Kasim Mansor said UMS is ready to become a regional centre of sporting excellence through facilities such as the UMS Teaching Hospital (HPUMS) and high-impact research conducted under the Healthy Through Active Living (HEAL) unit. "UMS is actively developing HPUMS, which will become a modern health referral centre not only for Sabah and Borneo but also for the Southeast Asian region. "Interestingly, HEAL has also launched a significant research initiative the development of a Talent Identification (Talent ID) system based on genetic analysis aimed at identifying athletic potential from an early stage," he said in a statement. This initiative was highlighted during the official visit by the Sarawak Sports Corporation to UMS at the HEAL Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FPSK) here recently. The approach is expected to transform the athlete selection landscape in Sabah through physical monitoring programmes based on scientific analyses, including cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength, functional movement, and postural balance. Kasim added that through this approach, the HEAL research team led by Associate Professor Dr D. Maryama will work to identify athletic talent at an early stage. "This holds great potential in enhancing talent development, especially in rural communities that often face limited access to conventional training facilities and talent detection. "This official visit is seen not only as a means to strengthen the close ties between the two sister states of Sabah and Sarawak, but also as an opportunity to open up strategic cooperation in sports development, professional training, clinical sports research, and community health." Kasim also expressed its openness to becoming a strategic partner to the Sarawak Sports Corporation in advancing athlete development and community well-being based on science and technology. Also present were Sarawak Deputy Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Gerald Rentap Jabu and Sarawak State Sports Council acting director Khairul Nizam Morshidi.
Time of India
01-08-2025
- General
- Time of India
Greenery, goat bank help in man-animal conflict zones
Kolkata: From a tree bank in Sundarbans to a goat bank in Purulia, conservationists are devising unique ways to address man-animal conflict in south Bengal. While saplings are being distributed among a group of village women in Sundarbans to make them aware about the importance of forest and discourage them from venturing into the woods, the goat bank in Purulia is helping the forest department and activists compensate for loss of villagers' livestock in attacks by predators. "As part of our initiative, 'Bon Banche, Narir Hatey' (Forest's future in women's hands), two mango saplings were handed to 50 forest-fringe women — not as gifts, but as promises of shade, sustenance, and survival. These trees symbolize her connection to the landscape, her role in nurturing life," said Joydip Kundu of city-based NGO Society for Heritage and Ecological researches (SHER). Over 250 kilometres away, a community-led seed goat bank replaced the first goat lost to carnivores in Purulia's Kotshila forest range. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata In a step towards community-led wildlife conservation, a resident of Haratan village in Purulia became the first beneficiary of a community-managed seed goat bank. The initiative, led by Human & Environment Alliance League (HEAL) and supported by WWF India's Conservation Catalyst Programme, aims to foster coexistence between people and wild carnivores by replacing livestock lost to predation. The incident occurred on July 20, when Bimal Mahato, a goat herder from Haratan, found the remains of a partially eaten goat from his herd in the forest. HEAL volunteers helped verify the incident and relayed it to the seed goat bank committee in Simni. On July 24, Mahato was given a replacement goat during a community handover event.
NBC News
20-06-2025
- Health
- NBC News
Wounded Gaza children find respite from war at Ohio summer camp
BUTLER, Ohio — Their bodies are maimed or burned. Their childhoods have been shattered. And their futures are filled with uncertainty as war rages in Gaza. But for one week, three dozen wounded Palestinian children and members of their families have found a respite from the fighting at a summer camp in Mohican State Park, just an hour north of Columbus. Thanks to HEAL Palestine, a nonprofit group that aids the youngest victims of the Gaza war, children like 7-year-old Qamar Alkordi, who uses two-hand crutches to walk, have been able to play in a safe place with other wounded children and feel less alone. "There's other kids, they have the prosthetic, they are walking, and this is, like, it makes me happy to see this," her mother, Huda Alkordi, said about the sleepaway camp, where Qamar played in an inflatable pool and sprayed other kids with water. "And I really hope that Qamar, one day, she gonna walk, inshallah [God willing]." HEAL runs field hospitals and food kitchens in Gaza and runs educational programs for children who haven't been inside a school since Israel Defense Forces invaded the crowded Palestinian territory after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage. "A lot of them are facing a future of near illiteracy," said a HEAL co-founder, Dr. Zeena Salman, referring to how schools have largely ceased functioning in the shattered enclave. In the 19-plus months since Israel began bombing Gaza and with most of its 2 million residents forced from their homes, Gaza has become an especially dangerous place for children. About 1,309 children have been killed and 3,738 have been injured since the end of the ceasefire in March, UNICEF said in a report last month. Overall, more than 55,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Realizing that they were confronted with "the largest population of child amputees in modern history," Salman said, she and her cohorts came up with the idea of a summer camp for the dozens of children they have been able to bring to the United States for specialized care. "Some of them have lost four limbs, and we as individuals are not able to stop this from happening, but at HEAL Palestine, we can start to give them back a little bit of what was taken from them," Salman said. That means a summer camp with ramps so kids who rely on wheelchairs and walkers and prosthetics can get around and play. "We brought them to a camp that's very accessible, where they can play wheelchair basketball or can do art with, like, adapted paintbrushes, you know, for kids who don't have fingers," Salman said. "We want every child to feel whole." When camp is over, many of the children are sent back to Egypt, where they are living temporarily because Gaza's borders are closed, HEAL officials said. Qamar was badly injured when her home was bombed two months after the war began. It was Dec. 4, 2023, Qamar's birthday. But with the fighting getting closer and closer to their home, Huda Alkordi purposely did not make plans to celebrate. "I decided not to tell her that it's her birthday, just in case if something bad happened," she said. And something bad did happen. Both of Qamar's siblings were hurt in the attack, as were several of her cousins. But Qamar was the most badly wounded, and after a week in the hospital she developed an infection that the doctors were unable to treat. "They decided to amputate her leg because of infection that happened with her leg," her mother said. Watching her daughter play, Huda said she knows this is only a temporary break from the chaos in Gaza. But she said her daughter, even without one leg, is luckier than many other injured children still back in Gaza. "I had the chance to take my daughter out and give her that treatment," she said. "All of them, they deserve to get treatment." At age 18, Sara Bsaiso is one of the oldest campers. She, too, was injured in the early days of the war when her grandmother's home was hit by a missile in an airstrike that killed one of her brothers, mortally wounded another and set her ablaze. The brother who initially survived died days later while waiting for help. Bsaiso sustained third-degree burns over much of her body and went weeks with only limited medical care before she was able to be medically evacuated to the United States. She is staying in New Jersey. Being at the camp and being able to interact with so many other young people who went through similar ordeals has been healing, she said. "I'm so grateful to be here, and I'm so happy to see you bring in all of these amazing children together," she said. Bsaiso said that as she was growing up in Gaza, she and her family often went to the beach and swam in the Mediterranean Sea. Since she has been at the camp, she has had the chance to do something she hadn't done since she was injured. "I haven't been able to swim until now," she said. Bsaiso said she was living in what she called a "cozy house" in the Rimal section of Gaza City with her parents, four brothers and three sisters when the war started. "I was in law last year of school, and I remember when I'm preparing to go to school, and then suddenly everything went crazy," she said. "We didn't understand. We didn't understand. We thought first probably it's raining, but it wasn't." It was the start of the Israeli offensive. Bsaiso, who has undergone multiple operations and skin grafts, said she thinks about her family back in Gaza every day. "For sure, I'm hoping for the ceasefires," she said. "And there's my dad and two brothers and two sisters' sons stuck in Gaza. And yeah, I hope the ceasefires happen and the borders open and everything will be good." In the meantime, she said, she is using her time at summer camp to mend, both outside and in.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Austin's HEAL Initiative focused on high risk homeless camps during severe weather season
AUSTIN (KXAN) — This week's forecast has included the risk of tornadoes, hail, flash flooding, and damaging winds. For people living outside and without easy shelter options, that type of weather presents unique challenges. 'Last night's storm was another reminder of why the preparation is important. Especially when you have severe wind, rain, hail and tornado warnings happening in the middle of the night,' Austin's Homeless Strategy Officer David Gray said. How does the city of Austin decide which homeless encampments to clear? That's why Gray said the city is tailoring its HEAL Initiative efforts toward areas that may be most impacted by severe weather right now. 'We've been looking at sites in wooded areas both to prevent wildfires but also to make sure that people are not injured from lightning strikes, falling trees, wind, tornados and floods,' Gray said. The HEAL Initiative is Austin's program that moves people from high-risk homeless encampments to a bridge shelter, where people get a temporary place to stay until something more permanent opens up. HEAL stands for Housing-Focused Encampment Assistance Link. 'A lot of our recent HEAL initiatives have focused on creek beds for this specific reason. We know that we're entering severe weather season and it's really important that we get people out of those creek beds and out of those low lying areas, so if we do have a flash flood, heaven forbid, we've minimized the chance for people to get injured in those weather events,' Gray said. Austin-led HEAL initiative closes four encampments If it's left you wondering — well, there's an encampment near my house. Why hasn't the city cleared that one? The city can only move people to shelter if one is available. When that space opens up, the city has a ranking system for which camp it targets next. 'Priority rankings are based off of things like the people who are at the sites, so if there is evidence of children or pregnant women or seniors. We also look at factors like, have there been fires at sites recently, what's its proximity to residential areas,' Gray said. Read more about that process here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Scroll.in
20-05-2025
- Scroll.in
How a wide net of efforts to end ritualistic hunting in India is seeing results
In 2016, a day before World Environment Day on June 5, Kolkata-based conservationist Meghna Banerjee received a distressing phone call about a huge gathering of hunters at the Panskura railway station in East Medinipur district, a bustling stop along the Howrah-Kharagpur railway line in West Bengal. Banerjee, a birdwatcher, was involved in rescuing animals and also engaged in anti-poaching activities. 'Initially, I did not take the call seriously, but my friend, Suvrajyoti Chatterjee, insisted that we go and investigate,' Banerjee said. 'We were shocked to find at least 5,000 hunters at the railway station with multiple sacks, each containing over 50 carcasses of monitor lizards. We saw around 2,000 live animals and carcasses lying on the platform. Some people were skinning the animals and were preparing to cook them on the open platform, in full view of the railway staff and the Railway Protection Force.' This particular hunt was part of the Phalaharini Kali Pujo festival, a Hindu festival primarily celebrated among Bengali communities. This event was the trigger for Banerjee and Chatterjee to start Human and Environment Alliance League – HEAL – in 2017, a non-profit that aims to curb rampant exploitation of wildlife and empower locals to protect their environments. The cluster of hunting festivals known as 'Shikar Utsav' start from January and continue till June. The hunting mainly coincides with the full moon. 'While tribes such as Santhal, Lodha, Sabar, Oraons etc. would mainly engage in these hunts as per their rituals, many non-tribal people would also join just for 'furti' or fun,' Banerjee told Mongabay India. 'There would be around 50 big and small hunting festivals in the year and some of the bigger ones would see gatherings of 10,000 to 15,000 hunters.' In 2018, Banerjee, a lawyer, filed a public interest litigation seeking a ban on the hunting that takes place during the Phalaharini Kali Pujo festival. In May 2018, the Calcutta High Court passed an interim order directing the forest department, the police and the railway authorities to work together to stop the hunting during this festival. Howrah-based animal rescuer Chitrak Pramanik said that till 2017, around 5,000 animals used to be slaughtered during the Phalaharini Kali Pujo in Howrah ranging from civets, fishing cats, monitor lizards, mongoose, squirrels, birds etc. 'After the court order, there has been a drastic reduction in hunting,' Pramanik added. 'In the last three years, there have been zero hunts in Howrah and East Medinipur. Now, all agencies including the forest department, police, railways and NGOs remain vigilant, and the hunters are mostly stopped and sent back from the Kolaghat bridge itself.' Things however were different in the tribal dense Jungle Mahal districts such as Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram and West Medinipur. In 2018, when an adult male tiger strayed into Lalgarh in the Jhargram district during the Pakhibandh hunting festival, it was allegedly killed by a spear after it mauled two members from a hunting party. This led to widespread outrage and HEAL filed another PIL, which led the Calcutta High Court to pass an embargo in 2019 on all hunting festivals in the state. A traditional community is granted rights over wildlife and forest resources under Schedule 3 (1) of the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 also known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA). The Forest Rights Act, however, specifically restricts hunting, trapping or extracting a part of the body of wild animals. 'With tribal communities having a long-standing relationship with the forest ecosystem and wildlife, often the forest department has to take a multi-pronged approach of awareness and enforcement to tackle these issues,' said Singaram Kulandaivel, Chief Conservator of Forest, Central Circle, an area where ritualistic hunts used to be common. 'If one travels 70-80 kilometres from Kolkata, an entirely different culture will be seen,' he added. 'The Jungle Mahal area is a tribal-dominated area. They used to hunt for cultural reasons, which today is not a very sustainable thing to do. We are requesting people to stop hunting or else these animals will not be found in the wild in the future.' Hunting practices In November 2024, a study titled ' Ritualistic hunts: exploring the motivations and conservation implications in West Bengal ' was published in Nature Conservation. It was a socioeconomic study that aimed to understand the hunting practices in Jhargram and West Medinipur districts. Speaking to Mongabay India, Vasudha Mishra, one of the authors and also a part of HEAL, said that they interviewed 112 individuals in these two districts (59 in Jhargram and 53 in West Medinipur). 'Out of them, 99 identified themselves as hunters and the rest as non-hunters.' The study revealed that it was mostly a traditional hunt with only two respondents admitting using guns. The hunting parties mostly comprised of 20-40 people who used traditional weapons such as spears (ballams), bows and arrows (teer dhonukh), catapults (batul, gulti), hand axes (tangi), wooden stick (lathi), snares (faand) among others. Wild boars were the most desirable kill for the respondents followed by the Indian hare, greater coucal, quail, collared dove, yellow-footed green pigeon, jungle cat and Bengal monitor lizards. Reduction in hunting Following a surge in incidents of illegal hunting during traditional festivals and rising concerns from wildlife activists, the Calcutta High Court in a landmark judgement in 2023, said that killing of animals in the wild for pleasure, and the purported show of false prowess, is as heinous and culpable a crime as murder. In the same judgement, the court ordered the formation of 'humane committees' in five districts of West Bengal – West Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and Mursidabad. This was later expanded to two more districts – East Bardhaman and Birbhum. The committee was headed by the District Judge and brought together all important stakeholders under one umbrella, including the Superintendent of Police, Divisional Forest Officer, Chief Conservator of Forest, Member Secretary, District Legal Service Authority, Public Prosecutor, Wildlife Warden, a member from the tribal community, Divisional Security Commissioner, Head Quarters, Railway Protection Force of the concerned zone and Tiasa Adhya, Joint Secretary of HEAL. Adhya, a wildlife biologist, represents the civil society and is the only person who is present in the committees of all seven districts. The court said that the committees would take steps for protection and preservation of animals in the forest and see that the animals were not killed indiscriminately, whether during hunting festivals or otherwise. In conversation with Mongabay India, Adhya said, 'Even if not unprecedented, the formation of these committees is certainly unique in the global scenario of wildlife conservation. It brings a member from those tribal communities engaging in ritualistic hunting thus involving them in conservation, while inclusion of a member from the civil society brings transparency.' She added that some of the committees like the one in Murshidabad are doing really well, while there are also districts like East Bardhaman which are yet to form a functional committee. 'Jhargram has done well by arranging a meeting with political representatives from the communities engaged in hunting,' she added. 'We did not agree on everything with them but at least a conversation has been initiated. The court had directed the committees to take a strategic action plan to mitigate hunting prior to the hunting season and also a plan of action to change the attitude of these communities about hunting by engaging with them throughout the year. However, more than meetings, I would like to see the focus on engagements with communities, which is currently lacking especially in the Jungle Mahal districts.' She added that even though the court had asked the committees to have bi-monthly meetings, barring Murshidabad, others do not have regular meetings. In 2025, only the committees in Birbhum, Purulia and West Medinipur have met so far. However, according to a post published on Facebook by HEAL in 2024, major hunting festivals of South Bengal such as Pakhibandh, Gopegarh, Arabari, Joypur and Ajodhya Hills saw a drastic reduction in the gathering of hunters, while 10 smaller hunting festivals were called off. Raju Sarkar, Divisional Forest Officer, Panchet said, 'Apart from killing of a wild boar in Joypur there has been no reported killing of any wild animals in the last two years in my division. I'd give more credit to enforcement for the reduction in hunting. We are now getting help from other agencies, including the police and railways and trying to intercept the hunters before they enter the district.' Meanwhile, Anjan Guha, Divisional Forest Officer of Purulia, credited the awareness campaigns by the forest department behind the reduced killing during the hunting festivals. 'In the last two years, we don't have any report of animals killed during Sendra (a tribal festival celebrated by the Santhal community),' he told Mongabay India. 'We are trying to disseminate an anti-hunting message through announcements, street plays and distributing pamphlets in Ol Chiki, a language spoken by the Santhal tribe. We do door-to-door campaigns and try to create awareness among women and children. We have organised certain sports like archery competitions instead during Sendra.' The Sendra Parab festival which takes place in Ajodhya Pahar in Purulia district during Buddha Purnima is one of the biggest festivals of the Santhal tribe. Traditionally it coincides with one of the biggest hunting festivals of the entire Central India landscape, the Shikar Parab. The same festival is celebrated as Visu Sendra or Disom Sendra in the Dalma region of Jharkhand and as Akhand Shikar in the Simlipal hills of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Rajen Tudu, spokesperson of the Bharat Jakat Majhi Pargana Mahal, one of the biggest organisations of the Santhal tribe spoke to Mongabay India about how the festival is wrongly seen as a hunting festival. ' Sendra actually means search,' he said. 'In the ancient times, when we used to live in the forests, we had to search for ideal habitat, food, water, medicinal plants etc. So, there used to be an annual event during which we used to search for places from where we could derive our required items.' Tudu added that as wild animals were more in numbers back in the days, they used to hunt both as a safety measure, and as a means to derive food. 'Now, Santhals don't need to hunt because the number of wild animals have dwindled and we have got alternative sources of animal protein. Even still, our tribe gets the tag of a 'hunters' and the state tries to use it as an excuse to snatch our right to enter the forests.' Explaining the connection tribals have with forests, Jagdeep Oraon, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Tribal Studies at Sidhu-Kanho-Birsha University in Purulia told Mongabay India, that in India, one will always find tribals in forest areas. 'Everything, including religion, economy and society, revolves around the forest. They eat in sal tree leaves; when they get married, their mandap is also made from a tree. In addition, their house materials are collected from forests,' he added. 'The supreme deity for the Santhal community is Marang Buru, which means the God of Forests. The tribal community has a very symbiotic relation with forests. If forests are still surviving in India, it is only because of the tribals.' Way ahead Banerjee said that while the reduction in hunting is an encouraging development, they are yet to achieve the target of zero hunts in Jungle Mahal. 'Now, HEAL has a dedicated team of around 150 volunteers who monitor and report these hunts,' she said. 'HEAL members have faced physical threats on ground while trying to stop the hunters because many of them are in an inebriated state and become quite aggressive.' Banerjee also shared that this year, they have reports of 10,000 to 15,000 people assembling in a big hunt in the Bankura district. They received reports of wild boars, jungle cats and rabbits being killed in these hunts. Pradeep Vyas, former Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Wildlife, West Bengal, said that according to the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, hunting is illegal and there is no concession for any community in this regard. 'However, some tribal communities believed in their right to hunt and if the forest department tried to stop them, they were seen as anti-tribal. Gradually awareness was raised among these communities and the authorities now have socio-legal rights to stop these hunts,' he added. 'They always had the legal rights, but as long as they do not get support from the society, implementation of any law becomes difficult.' Speaking to Mongabay India, Raza Kazmi, wildlife historian and conservationist expressed fear that unregulated hunting might lead to decimation of wildlife and empty forests with no animals. Giving the example of the Bison Maria tribe in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, he said, 'Bison Marias have this culture of wearing bison horns as headgear during their traditional dance. In this process, they wiped off the entire bison population in Bastar… now they are using plastic or wooden horns.' Kazmi also added that there is still a huge gap in awareness regarding wildlife conservation in the Central India region encompassing Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and parts of West Bengal.
