On our second day in Thanjavore, we met with Shayamala who is in charge of the outreach programs for ICTPH. She gave us a debriefing session in the morning regarding their different programs. They have many community health workers (CHWs) who serve as liaisons from the community members to the clinic. The CHWs are chosen from both the high and low caste areas of town giving the women an opportunity to interact with each other in group sessions. They operate on a volunteer basis and are an integral part of ICTPH's business. Each CHW is in charge of 50 households, and the CHW then manages five peer leaders who each cover ten households.
Their second project, the rangoli education campaign, uses very intricate chalk drawings that every household draws outside of their doors. CHW teams competed with each other to have the best pictation on how to prevent certain diseases. For example, some of the pictures showed how to wash hands and how to avoid getting TB. The CHW teams then won prizes for the best rangoli.
Their third outreach program was the Queen of the Kitchen contest. Women were provided with heart healthy recipes and food beforehand, and then the women showed up to make the dishes that day. They then won prizes for best presentation at the end of the day.
We all had the opportunity in the afternoon to spend a day with one or two CHWs in their homes. We were all paired with a member of ICTPH who could translate Tamil for us. We interviewed the women regarding their motivations and how they felt being a CHW. The opportunity to go into their homes and share a cup of masala tea (chai), fresh cow milk (!), or south indian coffee with them was amazing! They were so proud to be CHWs and to show us the CHW logo on each of their bags. The logo expresses both the aspects of health and light, Nala Oli. They were excited to be advancing their knowledge and to be a community resource because some of these women never went farther than high school. One woman expressed that she was a housewife before, and now she is able to get out of the house and interact with the village. She really wanted to improve the social welfare of her community and was motivated by the social aspect of being a CHW.
That evening, Dr. Sharma invited us to attend her daughter, Hiteshi's, third birthday party. Her daughter wore a lehnga and we all ate Indian snack food and cake with rosewater frosting. We ate mysore pak which is made from chickpea flour, sugar, and ghee. Sugarfest! Her mother expressed that she was upset because her father recently shaved her hair because it has been so hot. Did we mention it is HOT?
ICTPH has done three main outreach programs in different villages: water chlorination, a rangoli contest, and a queen of the kitchen contest. The chlorination project educates the community on the importance of everything from hand washing all the way to using point-of-use chlorination. ICTPH supplies the first three months of tablets and then once the people realize how easy they are to use, they then buy the rest of the tablets for thirty cents a month. This ensures that the community of Allukady will be drinking potable water.
Their second project, the rangoli education campaign, uses very intricate chalk drawings that every household draws outside of their doors. CHW teams competed with each other to have the best pictation on how to prevent certain diseases. For example, some of the pictures showed how to wash hands and how to avoid getting TB. The CHW teams then won prizes for the best rangoli. Their third outreach program was the Queen of the Kitchen contest. Women were provided with heart healthy recipes and food beforehand, and then the women showed up to make the dishes that day. They then won prizes for best presentation at the end of the day.
We all had the opportunity in the afternoon to spend a day with one or two CHWs in their homes. We were all paired with a member of ICTPH who could translate Tamil for us. We interviewed the women regarding their motivations and how they felt being a CHW. The opportunity to go into their homes and share a cup of masala tea (chai), fresh cow milk (!), or south indian coffee with them was amazing! They were so proud to be CHWs and to show us the CHW logo on each of their bags. The logo expresses both the aspects of health and light, Nala Oli. They were excited to be advancing their knowledge and to be a community resource because some of these women never went farther than high school. One woman expressed that she was a housewife before, and now she is able to get out of the house and interact with the village. She really wanted to improve the social welfare of her community and was motivated by the social aspect of being a CHW.
That evening, Dr. Sharma invited us to attend her daughter, Hiteshi's, third birthday party. Her daughter wore a lehnga and we all ate Indian snack food and cake with rosewater frosting. We ate mysore pak which is made from chickpea flour, sugar, and ghee. Sugarfest! Her mother expressed that she was upset because her father recently shaved her hair because it has been so hot. Did we mention it is HOT? 
hi i am loges,here architect
ReplyDeletemy native Thanjavur only,
u did explore nicely mine culture and photo thank you friends, i feel i want make with you friendship when you free replay me..
Below my Google page link :https://plus.google.com/+Aishwaryambuilders/posts ,