SAMA is founded in 2003 as a therapy and training centre under the name Kalaguna-Sadhana, as a result of the collaboration between Dr Simone Hunziker, a Swiss medical practitioner trained in traditional and complementary medicine – having set up a pioneering centre for integrative medicine in Lausanne in 1996 – and Jean-Pierre Bigler, Ayurveda practitioner and yoga therapist, having opened an Ayurveda consultation in French-speaking Switzerland in 2000.
From 2001, ayurvedic classes are held in both centres, first in Lausanne then in Vevey. The professional school is created in 2004, as an initiative of Dr Hunziker who subsequently involves in professional politics to gain national and international recognition for Ayurveda, in the context of the emerging movement towards the revival and recognition of traditional medicines. By 2018 SAMA has trained 140 therapists.
Ayurvedic consultations and treatments are conducted along the traditional principles. But it is the desire to take medical consultations onto a higher level that drives Dr Hunziker, from late 2007, to improve her own knowledge of ayurvedic medicine by making regular visits to India. This enables her to find both top-level Indian partner bodies, and the ideal medical environment to promote authentic Ayurveda.
In line with its development, vision and international activities, the Ayurveda centre is renamed in January 2009 and becomes SAMA – Swiss Ayurvedic Medical Academy Ltd.
In the same year, Dr Hunziker promotes SAMA to the Indian government, and signs a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of AYUSH and Arya Vaidya Pharmacy Ltd (AVP) in Coimbatore. AVP becomes the close Indian partner institution of SAMA. It is then known as a leading group of institutions for Ayurveda in India, a hardcore representative of authentic traditional Ayurveda, having made the most decisive modern scientific breakthroughs in the development and globalization of this medicine since the 1970s. The result of the tripartite collaboration is the launching in 2011 of the first global online database of research articles on Ayurveda published in scientific journals, DHARA.
Patients are referred for in-patient treatment to AVP when indicated. The referral process respects strict professional standards and procedures defined by SAMA for patient safety. Ayurveda products are imported from quality producers with respect to quality standards. They are used in the treatment center and the school, and are sold to SAMA patients as well as trained professionals.
From 2012, SAMA is developing a pioneering and ambitious Ayurvedic medicine training program, MedVaidya, as an outcome of the collaboration between Dr Hunziker and Dr U. Indulal from AVP, who becomes its dean. The first batch of a pilot phase enrolls in March 2015 with a course aimed at international students and evolving over 3 years in the form of intensive seminars in India and Switzerland. Over the years SAMA is supported in various activities by the Indo-Swiss Ayurveda Foundation.
2018 is a pivotal year for SAMA. It marks the end of the pioneer phase for Ayurveda internationally and calls for a rethink of the profession of Ayurveda therapists in Switzerland. AVP, SAMA’s Indian partner, changes its management and philosophy at a time when the pilot phase of the MedVaidya training program is completed and ready to be taken to the next level.
At the end of 2018 Charles Elie Nicollerat, an experienced entrepreneur and humanist with a background in law and social and political sciences, commits to SAMA. A new Board of Directors is set up and works to reform, consolidate and develop the various activities. The school, the therapy center, the in-patient treatments in India and the products, will from 2021 incrementally evolve as new, separate entities, while in 2023 SAMA becomes an institute dedicated to the promotion of science, tradition and research in Ayurveda.
