“The communities in which we live in and work with have a profound influence on our collective health and wellbeing. I am plagued with certain health issues in my life. However, I decided to build a health promotion model called ‘E4H’ Healthy Elders to build a community of healthy and well-nourished elders by creating community farms to lead a balanced lifestyle and wellness. Our innovative model inspired few international organizations to include in their development frameworks” told Shine Divakaran who turned a social entrepreneur from a software profession.

Shine Divakaran was born and raised in the city of Trivandrum. In 2014, he suffered and survived a stroke. This turn of adversity built a steely resolve to lead a balanced lifestyle to ultimately aid in his wellness and the wellness of society at large. 

Shine went on to explore and learn about the disconnection of people from nutritious food, active lifestyles and the natural world. The result of this disconnection is poor physical, mental and social well-being. His painful experiences inspired him to find easy and effective ways to reconnect to food, people and the natural world, thereby creating greater health and wellness in people’s lives. 

Thus, the company Eat Healthy was founded in April 2017 with its program Eat For Health(E4H) to build a community of healthy and well-nourished individuals. The project is developing steadily as they are building up their skills, gathering equipment, raising funds and understanding the land and their place in the community.

“Another life changing experience for me was staying and taking care of my 83-year-old mother who was facing all the challenges and trauma of old age. This urged me to set up a sustainable environment for her. There are many elders like her. The E4H found that just building a bridge between elder people and E4H’s services was not enough to address issues like loneliness and social well-being. The solution we arrived at was to bring them to the centre of a community life.” 

“I got in touch with one of my college mates, Kiron Bhaskar and another friend Santhosh. Kiron was based in the US and was seeking nutritious food options for his aged parents living at Trivandrum. During the discussion he agreed to sponsor an acre garden exclusively for elders. He had experience of developing a farm-based community for people with and without disability to live and work as productive members of the society. This was initiated by the Creative Living Community of Connecticut. Thus, the E4H garden for elders (parents of alumni of College of Engineering Trivandrum) was started on November 1st 2020 and hopes to harvest by April 3rd week in the year 2021.”

How does it work? 

For every 60 elders joining, E4H will allocate a farmer, one acre of land and the necessary setup to start the farming. The farm will be democratically managed by the representatives from these 60 elders and the farmer. The entire infrastructure needed for farming will be provided by E4H. 

The garden will grow vegetables produced by sustainable practices and run box schemes. Each box contains freshly plucked 10 vegetables which weighs around 5 Kg. The “user pays” scheme has a subscription charge of Rs 2000/month and the vegetables will be delivered to their doorstep. There are several ongoing activities that are progressing for the betterment of elder healthcare through E4H gardens.

E4H Healthy Elders is one of the best ecopreneurship models where Shine is advocating through food gardens as a tool for social change in society. Then, what is your tool for social change while reconnecting people with nature?