India

‘Increasing awareness for health policy at village level’

A number of Simavi’s projects in India are confronted with the lack of effective national health policy implementation at local and regional levels. This results in the people in villages being unable to make full use of the healthcare system.

Simavi is looking to change this by supporting organisations that focus on access to government healthcare. This takes place, amongst others, by training government appointed local healthcare workers (ASHAs – Accredited Social Health Activists) and women’s groups, by increasing the awareness among villagers and by lobbying the government.

Progress is finally being made. It has been shown that in 2010 the healthcare services are increasingly reaching the local population in remote areas.

Training

A good example of a partner helping to achieve this is Seba Sangha. This local partner has worked hard over the past year in training the local population of West Bengal so that the inhabitants become capable of managing the infrastructure for water and sanitation themselves.

In doing so, Seba Sangha mainly focuses on women and adolescents. Last year, it trained people on the importance of water and sanitary facilities and how they can be improved. But also on the rights of villagers and how they can hold the government accountable.

There were approximately 300 participants in 2010. In addition, Seba Sangha built communal latrines – shared toilets – in several villages to show how this works and it empowers women’s groups in the field of micro-credits and shared saving.

Healthcare

In 2010, Simavi approved three new project applications: CINI and NEEDS in the field of healthcare for mother and child and RCDC in the field of water, sanitation and hygiene.

Sikkim

In Sikkim, the VHAS network, supported by Simavi, had its first success. The network is engaged in the capacity building of 17 small local NGOs to enable them to carry out projects independently. The NGOs are trained in financial, human resources and project management.

They are also given funds to perform small-scale projects themselves and to learn from these. Once they are strong enough they can independently appeal to Simavi or another donor

HVS

After five years of capacity building the NGO HVS has now become strong enough and since 2010 it raises its own funds. In addition, HVS provides healthcare education for mother and child to healthcare workers, clergymen, mothers-to-be, but also in particular to fathers, in 10 villages in Sikkim.

Over the past year, Simavi also actively formed alliances in India, within the framework of the broader SRHR alliance in which Simavi has a leading role in the country.