Advancing women's agency: Swasthya Nari Saskhta Buxar | Healthy women, stronger Nation
- Dr Priyanjali Datta
- May 29, 2021
- 1 min read
In January to December 2019, Aaroogya worked in the Buxar district of Bihar to establish cancer prevention measures in the communities of 10,000 women and children living below the poverty line. During this time, Aaroogya facilitated the installations of Telemedicine Health Kiosks and Medicine Vending Machines (MVM) with electronic health records, specialized doctor consultation and diagnostic tests in collaboration with MedOnGo.
Aaroogya also hosted health, nutrition, sanitation, and hygiene studies and campaigned for awareness using workshops and door to door engagement from Aaroogya’s on-ground fellows.
During these sessions, women were not only educated on key issues like menstrual hygiene, but—thanks to the donation by Give Her 5 and the campaigning of Diya Mirza were gifted world-class reusable cloth SAAFKINS by Livinguard for a use of 1 year in a set of 3, representing over 7 years of textile and social innovation and design thinking expertise.
These educational campaigns reached 10,000 women in 10 blocks at Buxar, and served also as capacity building workshops, wherein over 1,000 local stakeholders and potential female leaders as well as 240 ANMs and over 100 ASHA workers in the community were educated on these subjects.
Aaroogya also engaged in prophylactic Hepatitis screening in association with Mylan Pharmaceuticals for over 8,000 beneficiaries, and conducted child influenza and malnutrition screening in association with Tracus for 2,000 children. Through all of this work, populations of women and children especially in Bihar were encouraged, informed, and made less prone to a number of major diseases. As Devkumar, a 33-year-old woman in Bihar testified, “no body is there to look after us. It was a relief when Aaroogya came into the village to help us.”
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