I visited our project in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh and attended two training sessions in our oldest training block, Shahgarh and in the newest, Sereni. I was overwhelmed by the eager participants: our village women. They are smart, inquisitive, and open to new information. Our lively discussions ranged from hand washing to menstrual ailments. Their candor was a revelation and the transformation of activists that has taken place in Shahgarh in the past 18 months – since we started there – is encouraging.
We crossed our target of training 400 new health activists in 2009 by November. December trainees will be an added bonus. Over 1,000 women have attended training sessions in 2009 and 412 have been designated as health activists. We have loftier targets for 2010.
We have expanded to a new district. Our team of trainers went to Babina, Jhansi and trained over 20 women. We are attempting to replicate our program there. We will also launch our program in Azamgarh on 6th January, 2010. Starting this month we are for the first time expanding our work to another state, Karnataka. Our trainers will conduct their first training in Chikbalapur, Karnataka. Our training books are currently being translated into Kannada. Mr Kamalkar Hallambi, Ex-Director of the Rural Literacy Mission of Karnataka will lead this program.
We are evolving into a health literacy organization with maternal mortality as our entry point into a community. Recognizing our potential to promote health literacy, our program is getting noticed. The Ministry of Health has asked us to participate in a national health literacy program through a national health portal. The Ministry of Health will own and manage the portal with private-public partnership. We have already started on this project and in the next few months we will see the launch of the national program to spread health literacy.
