Health and Nutrition

Ill health is the most critical setback that drives the Ultra Poor into the vicious cycle of extreme poverty. For the Ultra Poor Program, health constitutes a critical intervention both in terms of health messaging and also providing referral services linking them to Health Service Providers. Health interventions are spread across the following activities

Health Messaging Through House and Center Visits:

Dedicated Health Field Assistants make center and house visits and constantly provide information on primary health care, nutrition, AIDS and chronic ailments like TB, malaria and leprosy. In addition members are informed about herbal medicinal and nutritive plants available in their villages and are educated about their therapeutic and curative properties.

"Community targeted and tailored resource material is developed to make the messaging efficient."

Information Sessions:

Health Field Assistants instigate topical discussions for 45 minutes during Center Meetings. The topics cover the spectrum of health needs applicable to each community which have been identified through base line studies, health and nutrition mappings. Health Field Assistant is equipped with community friendly resource material and live specimens.

The material also includes information on clean habits cultivation like washing hands before eating, clean environs and clean drinking water. It also covers child health care and gender specific health issues. Since the majority of Ultra Poor members are destitute and single, there is a higher risk of them coming into contact with sexually transmitted diseases, which requires the program to include counseling on preventive measures. The Health Field Assistant is equipped with a Health Kit containing common drugs and resource material.

Barefoot doctors:
SKS has developed the institution of Barefoot doctors for providing last mile connectivity to first line health care. One of the active members of the Ultra Poor Center in the village is trained intensively through participatory learning methodologies to provide drugs for common ailments like diarrhea, malaria, pains and head ache. She identifies the pills through colors matching with her guide book. It is a paid service concept. She is provided with a medical kit that contains, besides pills for common ailments, multivitamin tablets, first aid and condoms. To sustain the link, we have linked them to reliable local pharmacies in close by towns for replenishment. This intervention has worked magics and the impact is visible everywhere.