Vision
Health care is not a privilege it is a human right but we must come together as people of like mind and work together to assert that right that we have as humans towards a practical practice of healthy living. If we expect to have a just and stable global society, there must be adequate health care for all.

Current Reality and Challenges
Paul Martin former finance minister and now PM of Canada says AIDS threatens two decades of progress in development (Paul Martin Statement Prepared for the Development Committee 4/30/01 www.fin.gc.ca/). But AIDS is not the only major health challenge we face:

	Malnutrition is a common problem not only due to lack of food but lack of variety of fresh foods that are chief source of various vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients;
	30 percent of the world's population lack access to clean drinking water;
	7.5 million children die each year in the prenatal period due to inadequate health care;

Among the poorest and most marginalized regions disease and malnutrition continues to be a everyday fact of life. Ironically enough the challenges of affluent countries are similar as many diets are based on just a few dominant crops, and sedentary lifestyles, which make us more susceptible to disease. Hunger and diseases like AIDS have been seen to mutually reinforce each other in damaging our ability to survive. Overuse of antibiotics, including in the food supply, has resulted, and continues to result, in the creation of drug-resistant diseases, which threaten to over-run the populations of crowded cities as well as the struggling rural areas.

It is important that we see the underlying causes of these problems. We believe that development practices have not considered a comprehensive approach to modernization. The conventional mindset has focused on the treatment of particular problems, epidemics and diseases. This approach emphasizes allopathic solutions that are based on the symptomatic approach to human health. Such thinking leads to an approach that facilitates a dependency mindset among those receiving aid avoiding the root issues that sustain the condition of poverty and underdevelopment.

Current health care approach of Western societies particularly in America tend to focus on practices and policies that enrich the health care establishment while providing questionable services to health care consumers. Health care is increasingly not only addressing problems with human health that would naturally occur in human development but also added problems associated with the shortsightedness of modernization and this applies to affluent as well as non-affluent regions:

	Research has increasingly documented links between Western diets promoted by the now emergent global commercial culture and the disease of affluence like obesity and heart disease and diabetes.
	High stress modern lifestyles only add to the mix;
	Occupational hazards associated with modern chemicals and materials is leading to an increase in cancer rates according to some research;
	There is a heated debate about additives in foods as to whether they may increase health problems and possibly even cause the proliferation of diseases and cancers.

Neglect of Rural Regions - OVF sees that the neglect of rural regions have been a major factor in continuing developmental dynamics that overwhelm emerging economies and preventing economic take off of these societies. The mass migration from rural villages carries with it harmful lifestyle changes:

	Stressful, competitive environment reduces human potential;
	Brain and resource drain results as able bodied people flee rural areas in search of a better life in cities;
	Basic human needs are not being met for nutrition, clothing and shelter.

Approach
We seek to promote development solutions that focus on understanding the root cause of these health problems. A key component of our health care and wellness program is to educate people of the alternatives to Western diets and medicine which ironically is usually because of unsustainable and unhealthy lifestyle of the typical consumer. Equally daunting is the challenge of epidemics and pandemics like TB and HIV/AIDS. It is our belief that an proactive and whole systems approach to health is needed in affluent and non-affluent nations alike. Our focus however is to initiate a proactive approach to the AIDS pandemic in Africa by seeking to develop adequate sanitary, health and educational infrastructure at the community level as well as effective treatments for AIDS and other serious diseases.

To prevent unnecessary and increasingly scarce resources from being expended on health care, we need to develop a health care model for developing societies that embraces a more holistic approach that carefully considers the impact of modern technologies, approaches and chemicals in relation to human health. Also important is to consider the use of alternative and holistic health care to prevent illness before drastic allopathic approaches like surgery or cancer treatment become necessary.

Education programs can cut child, birth rates and maternal mortality dramatically. Public health measures, only a little more expensive, can produce another significant step. Local availability of health services is also important. In a whole systems approach to development, there will be incremental costs for the specific resources needed to run sufficient multidisciplinary clinics. However, by far the largest impact will come from eliminating the original causes of morbidity and mortality through improved diet, overall well-being, social support, and a healthy environment.

An integrated approach to improving health in low-income nations includes:

	Rebuilding social support structures and indigenous culture;
	Economic development;
	Promotion of healthy lifestyles;
	Nutritional and herbal supplements;
	Easy access to clean water, healthy food and health care;
	Allopathic medicine.

Personal Transformation - An often overlooked aspect of health care is a strong mental state of being. Personal development is central to the realizing of our innate potential of our ideas to the people who can help us to make them happen. To achieve the goal of releasing psychological and social processes to serve in rebuilding a healthy community, Sarvodaya incorporates "the essence of religion, which is spirituality. What is the most practical way in which the spiritual 'being' of human personality could be awakened? Whether it is Buddhist or any other religious teaching, whatever prevents people from awakening their personalities and transforming themselves spiritually is of no use in our work."

Goals:

	Promote Holistic Health Care;
	Develop Health Care Information/Informatics Systems for deployment in emerging markets.