Workshop on Spreading the importance of Health & hygiene for infants & Women

Venue: Amar Pradhar Lashkar, Gwalior
(January 24-25, 2012)

SETU organized an awareness program on “The importance of Health & hygiene and providing the knowledge of iodine & ORS for infants & Women”. The area selected was a local slum inhabited mostly by uneducated, migrated & poor population of mixed communities. The locality is quite dirty and the people here were observed to have poor sanitary habits. The awareness level is low and the prevalent of diseases is high. Girl child education is low, contributing to further lower level of living standards. Most of these people have unreliable sources of regular income and are mostly laborers, artisans or are unemployed.

About 100 families attended the workshop.

Some of the points discussed in the program are as follows:

• The ill effects of poor sanitation, that becomes the root cause of many diseases like typhoid & cholera.
• Keeping the house & the surroundings clean & healthy
• How to purify the water if someone is unable to afford the regular filters available in the market
• Washing the hands before & after the meals
• Cutting their nails regularly & keeping them clean
• Brushing the teeth twice a day to keep teeth & gums health
• Steps to be take for a person suffering from diarrhea and the importance of ORS.
• Importance of iodine in our food.
• They were explained about the nutritious food carry iodine and other important elements.
• Importance of girl child education

Printed pamphlets containing information of the same were distributed among the crowd to make them well aware of healthy habits. The women & children were enthusiastic and they interacted with the speakers to clear their doubts about things they come across in daily life. Small health & hygiene kit comprising of toothbrushes, toothpastes, nail cutters, soaps, napkins, ORS pouches etc. were distributed to all the attendees who participated in discussion. Sweets were also distributed to all the children in the crowd as incentive. Some of the mothers decided to become strict with petty bad habits regarding self-cleanliness and explaining their children them about. It was encouraging to have a good feedback from the participants present as they expressed their wish to have such awareness programs every now and then.