Our Work - Educate
Community Health Improvement Program (CHIP)
We know from reports that the health level in the country is very poor. Our national health system is not adequate to provide necessary health services to all. Given the present health scenario of the country it is quite clear that external force alone will not be able to change it. Health will be achieved for all only if a community takes the responsibility of improving the health of its people, which means internal empowerment of the community is important. Our experiences over the years have proved this is possible through building capacity of the community. SXSSS has made efforts to improve their health through two approaches: One, spreading awareness in the community through various activities as well as delivering health services and second, training community health workers who belong to the community so that they can understand the community health problems. Improvement in health through enabling the community would be more sustainable.
Our health interventions have mainly focused on capacity building of the community through various means. These interventions fall under mainly three categories:
Building capacity through creating health awareness (this includes our efforts at personal level through interactions and providing services): Regular interaction with people is done for awareness. In awareness activities we try to disseminate information about the curative and preventive aspects of diseases, illnesses or the problems which are prevalent in the areas at that time. Home visits, focused meetings (meeting with a group of people when necessity arises), area level meetings, referring cases to experts, counselling, health check-up, and the like, are the tools used to spread awareness.
Building capacity through trainings and camps (this includes our efforts at the mass community level): Trainings and camps are organized for different participants for building their capacity through mass awareness. Apart from that health education is given to children in various areas.
Networking for health (this includes our efforts to reach out to different stake holders and thus reach out to more people to improve their health): Networking has proved to be an important tool to provide basic health services to thousands of people. Through networking it is possible to join different stake holders to a common goal. Believing in the strength of networking SXSSS is making constant efforts so that health services of the experts and government organizations reach out to the people at the margin. Networking has proved to be an important tool even in our day-to-day activities. Critical Illness Eradication Centre, Health Forum and community Health Workers’ Training Programmes are the examples of effectiveness of networking.