Dear Friend,
Seva Mandir organizes community-based camps to provide Severe Acute Malnourished (SAM) Children from highly-remote areas in Rajasthan, India with medical care and treatment.
Malnutrition is a significant issue effecting children throughout Rajasthan. Government data shows only 3.4% of children aged between 6 - 23 months receive an adequate diet & 61% of children are underweight. People tend not to see malnourishment as a medical problem so do not seek treatment. When they do, hospitals are located far away, and parents lose vital income when they take children for treatment. Seva Mandir’s intervention reaches children aged from 7 months to 5 years old from poor rural and tribal families. Our Doctors & nurses provide treatment for SAM children with Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic Foods & routine medical care. SAM children who have larger medical complications are referred to hospitals for more intensive treatment. Seva Mandir runs 40 camps a year, providing approx. 700 children with life-saving treatment.
Lakshmi, a young and vivacious 4-year-old girl, has experience of medical care administered through Seva Mandir camps. Sharing Lakshmi’s story is her parents; Inder, her father, who is an agricultural labourer takes care, alongside his wife, of Lakshmi and her younger sister. Despite their efforts, both daughters suffer from malnutrition from combined causes of infrastructure absence and rural poverty. Lakshmi and her sister accompany each other to Seva Mandir’s camps, where vital care is given from nurses and a Balsakhi (children caretaker trained by Seva Mandir).
Like many other infants in her village, Lakshmi used to be a patient of diarrhoea caused by malnutrition through decreased nutrient absorption. She receives two daily meals from the Seva Mandir caretaker ensuring her dietary requirements are met by providing her with carbohydrates, protein, iron and other vital minerals. Now, Lakshmi weighs 12 kgs, showing she is well nourished and with continuous striving from family and nurses she will soon live a healthy and prosperous life.
Lakshmi also attends Seva Mandir’ Balwadi (pre-school) and is enjoying the start of her education. At the Balwadi, she involves herself in daily fun activities like building blocks, learning numbers, and playing with other children of her age. When asked what Lakshmi wants to be when she grows up, she answered that she would like to become a nurse. This shows Lakshmi has grown into an ambitious girl and reflects many stories of children growing up to give back to their own communities that helped them.
Thank you for your support and for the confidence that you have placed in us. Lakshmi’s story and many others like hers would not have been possible without the help of donors. Through further intervention we will see a reduction in cases of malnourishment in rural areas, along with increased awareness of early prevention. When children have recovered from malnutrition, their general health and happiness improves which in the long term will enable them to focus on their education. We run follow up systems, where Seva Mandir's community health workers will visit children who have benefited from the camps to ensure they have not relapsed into further malnourishment.
Thank you so much.
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend,
We are thrilled to announce that GlobalGiving has awarded Seva Mandir with 5 achievements (Effective Organization, Staff Favorite Organization, Top Ranked Organization, Vetted Organization, Site Visit Verified Organization) making us a top-ranked organization for 2019!
All thanks goes to our dedicated supporters that we are able to keep accomplishing more every year and changing people's lives for the better. We can't thank you enough for your support and we look forward to another successful year!
An immunization camp in Sagwada village was initiated by Seva Mandir previously because of the lack of basic healthcare facilities there.
The nearest general health center is 7 kms away and the nearest center where immunization is undertaken is 4 kms away. Many of the women and children of Sagwada are simply unable to undertake these journeys and therefore often missed out on routine immunization.
Mohani (name changed), a resident of Sagwada who has attended the Seva Mandir camp, shared her experiences with us. She said that without the camp she would not have been able to get immunization for herself during pregnancy or for her young son. She lives at the farthest end of the village and it would have been too great an ordeal for her to walk, either when pregnant or with her baby after his birth, to the nearest center.
Mohani had been motivated by a representative of Seva Mandir to attend the camp and received ante-natal check-ups as well as immunization. She knows that the camp is a boon for her village as it helps protect the lives both of the pregnant women and of their young children.
Thank you for your support and for the confidence that you have placed in us. None of this would have been possible without you.
We would also like to wish you and your family a very Happy Holi.
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend,
Shobha lives in one of the remote villages of Kotra block. She has given birth twice but sadly both of the babies did not survive. During these pregnancies, she did not receive any maternal health care assistance, such as antenatal care or TT vaccinations, as government health services and facilities in the area were out of reach. Shobha became pregnant again, but this time she attended the immunization camps in her village; an initiative launched by Seva Mandir in 2009 in order to raise awareness and improve vaccination services for free. These camps not only provided Shobha with all the necessary vaccinations during her pregnancy, but she was also counseled on nutrition and advised to take iron tablets to combat her anemia.
Furthermore, one of Seva Mandir’s Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs - women from the village who have been trained by Seva Mandir to serve pregnant woman) assisted Shobha throughout her pregnancy, checking on her every month when she visited the village for immunization camps. Thanks to the primary assistance provided by Seva Mandir, Shobha was able to have a safe delivery, giving birth to a happy and healthy child. Shobha says she is happy that she has a healthy child and that she is deeply grateful to Seva Mandir’s TBA for all the help and support she was given during her pregnancy.
Seva Mandir will continue to conduct free health checkups and immunization camps in remote villages of its working area in order to help many such women like Shobha. We are immensely proud of the improvements we have been able to make in the lives of these women and children and hope to reach to many more. Your support to Seva Mandir is essential, since only people like you can turn Seva Mandir's efforts and commitment into reality.
We are proud to share that Seva Mandir has been featured in a The New York Times article! One of our GlobalGiving campaigns has been selected as an alternative way to give a gift this Christmas. The link to the article is https://goo.gl/sCxFGC
Also, GlobalGiving's “Year End Campaign” has begun! Until the end of December, all recurring donations up to $200 will be 100% matched throughout the campaign, and whichever organisation achieves the most funds during the campaign will receive $2,000 from GlobalGiving!
Help Seva Mandir achieve these goals this December by donating on our GlobalGiving page!
Thank you so much.
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend,
An immunization camp in Sagwada village was initiated by Seva Mandir because of the lack of basic healthcare facilities there.
The nearest general health center is 7km away and the nearest center where immunization is undertaken is 4km away. Many of the women and children of Sagwada are simply unable to undertake these journeys and therefore often missed out on routine immunization.
Pooja (name changed), a resident of Sagwada who has attended the Seva Mandir camp, shared her experiences with us. She said that without the camp she would not have been able to get immunization for herself during pregnancy or for her young son. She lives at the farthest end of the village and it would have been too great an ordeal for her to walk, either when pregnant or with her baby after his birth, to the nearest center.
Pooja had been motivated by a representative of Seva Mandir to attend the camp and received ante-natal check-ups as well as immunization. Pooja knows that the camp is a boon for her village as it helps protect the lives both of the pregnant women and of their young children.
Thank you for helping us to provide vaccines to these young children and pregnant women from deprived communities. It is because of your support, we are able to organize monthly immunization camps in villages of southern Rajasthan.
Regards,
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on https://www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend,
Thank you for helping us to provide vaccines to the children from deprived communities. It is because of your support, we are able to organize monthly immunization camps in villages of southern Rajasthan.
Due to unavailability of basic health facilities, vast numbers of children in this area either receive no immunization or fail to complete the full course of inoculations to protect them from deadly diseases.
Last year, a total of 1709 shots were administered to 1482 children. Out of this number, 369 children completed the full immunization course. Along with vaccinations for children, the camps also provide antenatal care to pregnant women which include two doses of Tetanus Toxoid injection along with the regular checkups to monitor their basic health. The total number of shots administered to pregnant women in the reporting period is 1003 from which 440 completed their immunization.
We couldn’t do this without your help.
Nidhi, who has two children, one 4 months old and one 2 years old, explains that she brought both her children to the immunization camp to receive their full rounds of vaccinations. She says she has been able to do this because Seva Mandir’s immunization camp always run on the same day of every month, making it easy for her to remember the day she is supposed to attend and ensure she makes it. Unlike government clinics, which are open for immunizations on irregular days and are often unattended when they are meant to be open, she explains that as she knows Seva Mandir’s camp is reliable, she will make the journey and ensure her child is vaccinated.
We need your help to continue offering these life-saving vaccinations to small children in these villages.
Thank you for the confidence that you have placed in us.
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
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