S·H·E Sanitation · Health · Education
SHE, launched in 2008 in collaboration with the CMF, is the village outreach arm of our work--working with pregant and new mothers, differently-abled adults and teenage girls. All of our efforts are aimed at improving the health, well-being and status of females and differently-abled in the villages, and combatting the menace of female infanticide and foeticide.
Work with mothers
Current programmes:
- Registering of female births and deaths in villages adjacent to the Mercy Home.
- Registering and keeping detailed medical records of ANC and PNC mothers.
- Assisting mothers obtain government benefits available for them.
- Assisting mothers obtain medical check ups.
- Report to government any unnatural deaths.
- Monthly seminars for pregnant women on pregnancy, healthcare and hygiene.
- Providing nutrition and vitamin supplements to hardship cases.
- House visitation and counseling.
- Assisting physically challenged residents of local villages obtain special government ID cards which will entitle them to special benefits.
Awareness Programs for Teenage Girls
We have started regular monthly awareness meetings for teenage girls from local villages. The program consists of games and activies, interspersed with awareness talks on relevant issues, such as hygiene, nutrition*, female infanticide, education, aids awareness etc. These meetings have been very well attended with between 60-100 girls regularly participating. They are starting to open up also about the problems they see in their villages, even citing prostitution as a problem, along with high dowries, lack of respect for women etc.
For Pongal (the Harvest festival of South India, which is a big celebration here,) the girls also enjoyed dance competitions and displayed a lot of talent.
*In India, anemia is the 2nd most common cause of maternal deaths accounting for 19% of total maternal deaths. Source: 'Nutritional Status of Rural Pregnant Women' by L.H. Madhavi, H.K.G. Singh,Department of Community Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Khaja Banda Nawaz Institute of Medical Science,Gulbarga-585105 (Karnataka)
Rural Educational Centre
RPI is currently constructing a building to be used as a preschool for handicapped village children, and a multi-purpose educational centre for the following activities:
- Seminars and information/advice centre for pregnant and new mothers.
- Awareness meetings for teenage girls.
- Evening tuitions for local school children.
- Holiday activities for local school children.
Additonal sponsorship is still required for this. Please contact us for more details, or go to the 'donate' page to see how you can make a donation.