By Nicola Tiltman | HIV & AIDS Medical Projects Facilitator
We are delighted to update you on the progress of our partners in India who are making the most of the 1,000 day window of opportunity.
In addition to teaching on basic health and preventable diseases, Community Health Workers (CHWs) in India spend approx. 10% of their time giving education and support to expectant and new mothers. CHWs reach out to mainly Dalit and low caste communities, many of whom are illiterate. To enhance this health education role, we recognised the need to create picture based visual aids which focus on pregnancy, child birth and care for the new-born, so to reach this often marginalised community.
We recognise that it is vital for women to receive antenatal and postnatal education and support during the 1,000 days; therefore each CHW will receive a set of teaching aids and be trained on how to use them. We believe that the materials together with training will equip CHWs to reach a much broader group of women in the communities in which they are already working.
The funds that you have so generously given enabled 20 sets of visual aids to be produced in March and 20 CHWs from North India were invited to receive training on how to use them. During the training, CHWs were asked for their feedback on the visual aids.
Our partners report that the group were delighted with and very enthusiastic about the new materials. They shared that they are looking forward to putting them to use and sharing this knowledge with women in their communities. They also provided feedback on additional images that they wanted to be included; something to allow them to discuss prejudice against girl babies, something to remind them to mention making a plan for delivery, a slide about immunisation and a picture to mention that during pregnancy heavy work is not a good idea.
On receiving this feedback a few alterations have been made to the slides and during the next training in June, CHWs will again be asked to give their feedback.
A further 20 sets of teaching aids have been printed in preparation for the upcoming training, which YOU have made possible.
Thank you for helping us equip CHWs to bring support and education to women during the 1,000 day window.
Matched Funding Opportunity with Global Giving - See your donation increased by 50% on 15th June 2016
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On June 15th, GlobalGiving.org (in the US) will be holding a Bonus Day with $110,000 available in matching funds. RED International has attained the "Superstar" reward status which means donations to our projects will be 50% matched. This is only applies to donations made online between 9:00:01am EDT and 23:59:59pm EDT on June 15th (time in your city).
Also on June 15th GlobalGiving.co.uk will be running their own Bonus Day for UK donors! There will be £10,000 matching funds available and all donations given to RED International's projects on GlobalGiving.co.uk will be matched by 50% as long as the funds last. Again this only applies to donations made online between 14:00:01pm BST and 4:59:59pm BST on June 16th (time in your city).
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