By Geetanjali Deshmukh | Manager
Dear friends,
Greetings!
We are happy to bring to you, the first report of our new project - Self-Care for needy women. We have been conducting Awareness and Life Skill Sessions on topics like Health, Hygiene and Stress Management for underprivileged women enrolled in our skill development courses. But still we find that an alarming no. of these women suffer from various health related issues. Amongst other reasons, lack of self-care is an important one which has to be addressed.
Women from underprivileged families in India don’t carve out time for themselves from their daily routine. Their priority is always their children, husbands and daily chores but not their own mental and physical health. We want to change this culture of self-neglect into one of self-care so we initiated this new project which focuses on teaching women, how to take care of themselves by providing them with necessary information, nutrition and support.
Last month we conducted an Anemia awareness session for a group of 30 women who are enrolled with IDEA’s Tailoring and Beautician course. The session was conducted by IDEA social worker, who first explained the importance of self-care, how to carve some time for own self from busy schedule and the positive effect self-care has on other aspects of life. She then took up a common problem faced by majority Indian women – Anemia.
She asked the women to raise their hands if they suffer from symptoms like – weakness, shortness of breath, feeling giddy, increased thirst, poor concentration or light headedness. These symptoms are often ignored and Anemia goes undetected. She explained what Anemia really is - Anaemia is a decrease in the total amount of red blood cells (RBCs) or haemoglobin in the blood, which decreases the oxygen carrying ability of blood.
The social worker explained that getting their Hemogram test done is a starting point. This blood test is done to detect white blood cell count (WBC), red blood cell count (RBC), haemoglobin (HGB) level etc. The normal level of Haemoglobin for women is 12.1 to 15.1 g/dL. To maintain these levels women should eat nutritious food regularly and they must include iron rich foods in their diet such as green leafy vegetables, beetroot, eggs, dates and jaggery. If Anemia worsens then the treatment includes oral or injectable iron medicines or blood transfusions in severe cases.
All women were urged to get their Hemogram tests done. We plan to conduct more sessions on nutrition and importance of healthy diet, during which detailed diet plan will be prepared by all women with the help of a nutritionist. Friends, these are important initiatives which can really improve health, quality of life and productivity of underprivileged women.
PLEASE DONATE TO HELP US CONTINUE THIS SELF-CARE PROJECT FOR WOMEN!
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