A path towards Ayurveda

Anyone who has ever met her will tell you: Simone Hunziker has all the features of a visionary and a pioneer. The visionary in her brings to bear a clear-sighted capacity for analysis, and a creativity, which enable her to conceive and build connections between people, cultures and disciplines in line with her vision of a worldwide rebirth of Ayurvedic medicine. Her pioneer side makes her an outspoken, determined, heartfelt “one-off”, courageous, resilient, and selfless. Simone Hunziker was born in 1963 in German-speaking Switzerland, growing up between the two divergin
worlds of her father – who while still a young man, was in charge of the Health Department in the canton of Aargau, representing “academic” medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, while soon rising to national prominence at the head of Switzerland’s main rightwing political party - and her mother who was a diehard devotee of natural medicines, of biodynamic gardening, and of non-authoritarian education. Simone shared her father’s passion for music — he was an amateur jazz pianist — and dreamed of becoming a singer and actress, although not before qualifying at the business school in Neuchâtel. From then on, French-speaking Switzerland became the land of her choice, where immersed in the Iranian immigrant community she was initiated into Persian culture — a first step toward the Orient. But just as she was about to embark on art studies, she had a decisive moment. From the depths of her soul came a call for her to make a most unlikely choice: her dream of an alternative lifestyle on the stage or in an artist’s studio? or hospital? She signed on at Lausanne’s medical university for the curriculum straight through to a doctorate in gynecology and medical training, for which she earned the Medical Faculty Award. But when they offered her the coveted chance of clinical specialization at the University Hospital Centre (CHUV), she turned it down. She was already won over to natural medicine. Concerned by global health in the long term, Simone Hunziker now left the beaten track. Without leaving her specialisation in general medicine, she undertook training in Jungian psychotherapy, homeopathy, naturopathy, nutritional medicine, and phytotherapy. In 1996 she opened, in central Lausanne, a consultancy evolving into a multidisciplinary centre where therapists from various alternative disciplines were collaborating. Her appointments book overflowed. She began to attract media attention, “Temps Présent”, the renowned crew of top reporters of Switzerland’s French Television (TSR) wanted to make a report. Yet, unconventional and without official recognition, she also realised that this accumulation of disciplines, each with its own parlance, was incoherent and that the sum of the parts did not add up to the value of the whole she aspired to. She went through a moment of doubt before discovering, in 2001 Ayurveda, which brought about her resilience. Being utterly convinced by the sense of a medical system that put people’s health at the centre of a holistic concept, rooted in a system of knowledge that is at once spiritual, philosophical, sociological, psychological and environmental, she decided to devote her life to it. She trained in Ayurveda and since 2004 is managing the professional school which she set up, now known as SAMA – Swiss Ayurvedic Medical Academy, which provides high-quality training. In 2014, at the time of launching a training program in Ayurveda medicine, more than hundred therapists have trained there. From 2005 on Simone Hunziker involved in professional politics, first at the national level and then internationally, up to the Indian government. Her actions have led to decisive breakthroughs : In 2009 the Indian government held in New Delhi the first international meeting of Ayurvedic delegates. A dialogue was established, directives were issued and WHO published the guidelines for professional Ayurveda training in 2010. On her initiative the first global online data-base on published Ayurveda research papers came to be in 2011 and the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi opened an Ayurveda file with its own official study, and an inter-government Indo-Swiss dialogue was set up to help with institutionalising Ayurvedic medicine in Switzerland. As the President of the Swiss professional association for Ayurveda practitioners and therapists (ASMTA) from 2009 to 2014 she contributed to the recognition of Ayurveda in the two new professions for alternative medicine and therapy in Switzerland. From 2012 on Simone Hunziker gives first introductory lectures on Ayurveda to undergraduate students at a Medical Faculty in Europe and between 2012 and 2014 designes at SAMA - in collaboration with her Indian partners - a training program in Ayurvedic medicine according to WHO, AYUSH1 (BAMS2) and Swiss regulatory directives for international students. Since 2008 Simone Hunziker lives half in Switzerland, half in India where, since 2009, she has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian government and with renowned Ayurveda partner institutions. In 2012 she created the ISA Foundation. She still continues to direct the international projects which she set up, to practice medicine and develop education in Ayurveda. Her tireless efforts to promote the Swiss regulatory model for the globalization of Ayurveda came to fruition. In 2016 the Indian government recognizes the model and Simone Hunziker receives the Pandit Shive Sharma Oration and Award at the mythic Benares Hindu University (BHU) in 2017. Upon the recommendation of the government the Indian Association for the Study of Asian Medicine (IASTAM) bestows this price for the first time on a foreigner and on a woman. The same year she becomes founding member of the Swiss Umbrella Organisation for Ayurveda and in 2018 she is nominated by WHO as expert in Ayurveda and as co-rapporteur during the historic first Working Group Meeting of international experts for the WHO benchmarks for clinical practice in Ayurveda in Jaipur.
1Indian Ministry for traditional medical systems 2Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery