1000 days - Education & Support for Mother & Child

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are critical to women and children’s health in India. Here’s one example of why RED International’s partner and your support is so vital:

Shilpa*, a CHW, met a village woman named Deepa* who lives 5 miles away from the School Shilpa’s linked to in East India. Between age 16-22 Deepa had two children. One is two years old and another one is 4 years old.

They live in a small single tiled roof house. Her husband is paralysed and not being able to do any work. Deepa is illiterate but makes nice vine juice and sells it and supports the family.

Since it was vaccine (Polio) time, the Community Health Worker discussed with her the importance of children being immunised. She explained that immunisations have helped children stay healthy for more than 50 years. They are safe. Immunisations can save and protect your child’s life from diseases. Immunisations can save families time and money. Don’t miss giving your child BCG, Polio Drops, DPT, MMR and Hepatitis B (3 doses).

As The CHW was sharing this, Deepa started crying and said, “if you would have come little earlier to speak about this, you could have saved my child from death.” Now I lost my child because I did not immunise him.

The CHW wiped her tears and comforted her.  Then added to take care of her 4 year old child, and immunise him. She assured her saying “I will do and also I will tell the young mothers to immunise and save children from dying”.

Shilpa deepened her understanding of being a Community Health Worker and the need and necessity of teaching about immunisation in Indian villages. She also felt great in being part of the health care department run by OMIF and the Good Shepherd Team in saving children from dying without immunisation.

It is important that CHWs receive ongoing support to encourage their confidence and understanding of the work they are involved in. Consistent (monthly) reporting, a buddying system for new CHWs and additional CHWs starting in October have all benefitted communities over the last few months.

Three months in the life of a CHW

Thanks to your support Community Health Workers (CHWs) have had a significant impact on women and children’s health.  Here’s a snap shot on one district in Mahbubnagar, Central India.

July to September was a busy three months for one district. 8 CHWs visited 10 sub districts and 14 villages. There were 3556 health related contacts by CHWs over these 3 months, distributed between home visits, medical camps and village education programmes as shown below.

Home Visits

CHWs visit community members in their home to deliver one to one health education or tend to the needs of the sick including onward referral where necessary.  In this period there were 1014 home visits by CHWs including 429 to Joginis.  The spread of problems seen (by percentage) are shown in the chart below.  Note gynae includes antenatal care and general women’s conditions and accounts for almost half of all home visits.

Village Education Programmes

There were 65 village education programmes, attracting 1986 people, of whom 755 were Joginis in this period.  These are gatherings in the villages run by the CHWs with the aim of teaching the community about a specific topic.  The topics taught are shown below. Improving overall health is vital for mothers and children. CHWs make use of the antenatal visual aids funded by this project during Village Education Programmes. These tools help CHWs to communicate and highlight a range of issues in relation to pregnancy and childbirth as well as the importance of immunisation etc.

Births and Deaths

There were 40 reported births (of which one child died in childbirth) and co-incidentally also 40 reported deaths in these villages in this time period.  The average age at death was around 40 (median 40, mean 43).  The one Jogini reported to have died in this time period was 35 years old and died of an unspecified fever.

90% of the births were in hospital, all but 1 of the babies are reported to have received BCG vaccine at birth, and only 1 baby was not being breast fed in the week following birth.

Your support is making this happen!

Community Health Workers are a vital resource for these communities. RED International’s partners are planning to train a further 10-15 CHWs in December 2016 with a particular focus on communities of vulnerable women in Telangana State. These are in addition to the 60 CHWs already working with the Good Shepherd Schools and their surrounding communities across India.

Thank you so much for helping to support CHWs and the resources they use through RED International and GlobalGiving. I hope you are inspired to share this with your friends.

To keep on training and supporting those we already have as well as expanding CHWs to other areas requires an ongoing commitment to invest in them. With your support we look forward to updating you with more stories in the New Year.

*names changed

50% Matched Funding Opportunity on 29^th November 2016 #GivingTuesday

We would be grateful if you would encourage others to support this project on 29^th November 2016 which has been designated #GivingTuesday. All donations will be increased by 50% with matched funding while the funds last. Please consider sharing this project with your friends, colleagues and wider networks.

GlobalGiving US have $500,000 of matching funds and donations of up to $1000 will be match funded.

GlobalGiving UK also have a 50% matched funding opportunity on 29^th November with £20,000 of matching funds on donations up to £600.