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The
Institute undertook a non-formal health education project in
70 villages, with the co-operation of the KEM Hospital
Research Centre, Pune. The project yielded four significant
results: The communities from the project-area became
relatively free from water-borne diseases. This reduced their
expenditure on medicines, prevented loss of working days, and
thus helped them economically. The second benefit was that the
families covered learnt to make the oral rehydration drink,
thus reducing the incidence of diarrhoea, preventing
child-mortality, saving the time of women-folk for wage-labour,
and better acceptance of family-planning. The third benefit
was better nutrition from locally available vegetables for
reducing A and C vitamin deficiency. The fourth benefit was
reduction of the rainy-season load on OPDs of Primary Health
Centres and providing the staff with time to attend to special
cases. The learning material produced for this project has
helped subsequent adult-education programmes. |
