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 Healthy cooking
The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) — a pioneering people’s science
movement in India — is working towards providing education and fuel-efficient stoves
to poor households. It has substantive programmes on issues pertaining to health and
women. The organisation led Kerala’s high efficiency chulha (stoves) programme. It
funded the Integrated Rural Technology Centre (IRTC) that became the main research site
for testing various chulha models and bringing together scientists and villagers to solve
problems related to the use of the chulhas in ordinary people's homes. This chulha reduced
indoor air pollution and health hazards, particularly to women. KSSP has received a number
of awards, including United Nations Environment Programme's Global 500, the Vriksha Mitra
and the King Sejong (UNESCO) award.Its mission is to popularise science and technology in the country
and to oppose abuse of environmental resources. A group of concerned activists and science
writers started the movement as early as 1957. The organisation had 2,600 members in 1976
and presently has 60,000 members. In 1989, KSSP undertook a massive literacy campaign in
the district of Ernakulum, Kerala. The district administration and KSSP, along with
various other voluntary and mass organisations, are working hand in hand on the platform
of the now famous Zilla Saksharatha Samithi. This campaign approach has helped Kerala in
spearheading its literacy campaign.
For more information contact:
Dr K P Aravindan
chairman of KSSP's health committee
Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad
AKG Road, PO Edappally
Kochi 682 024, India
Email: sasthra@md3.vsnl.net.in
Eradicating TB
 A voluntary organisation, Seva
Mandir, is working on rural and tribal development issues in and around Udaipur district
in Rajasthan. It is involved in the Revised National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme
(RNTCP) of the government and in the implementation of the DOTS (Directly Observed
Treatment, Short course) therapy for TB under RNTCP at the field level. Twenty-nine
paramedical workers were trained under the government’s TB DOTS programme in the year
1999- 2000 and since then, in collaboration with the government health department, they
have been providing services to the TB patients in their villages. Besides this, Health
Education and Maternal and Child Health Programme are the major components of its Health
Programme. As of today, this programme is reaching out to about 250 villages through a
network of 325 health workers comprising village health workers (VHWs), home remedy
workers (HRWs) and traditional birth attendants (TBAs). They hold meetings, treat minor
ailments and provide safe drinking water. The organisation provides health and other
development activities to 583 villages. Its goal is to provide sustainable livelihood to
village communities and to achieve well-being in terms of health, education and gender
equalities. It has 282 staff and 737 paramedical workers. The latter work at the village
level. Traditionally, rural Udaipur has been dependent on forestry, agriculture and
livestock rearing for livelihoods. However, in recent years, due to large-scale
degradation of natural resources, people are migrating to work as daily-wage labourers.
Low literacy rates and poor nutritional and health status amongst the rural poor
(especially the women) further compounds the problem. Seva Mandir provides livelihood to
these people by wasteland, watershed and water resource development. It involves the
village community to undertake soil and water conservation interventions and public action
to support education, women welfare and health-related activities.
For more information contact:
Dr Sanjana B Mohan
coordinator — child health programme
Seva Mandir, Old Fatehpura, Udaipur
Rajasthan, India
Tel.: +91-294-2540960, 2451041
Fax: +91-294-2450947
Email: smandir@vsnl.com |
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