Improved Health, Hygiene & living conditions
Goals
- Improved community and family health, hygiene and living conditions.
- The community free from preventable sicknesses and diseases.
Medical Camps
Since 2008 community residents have been provided with home cleaning products, this has contributed to cleanliness of many community homes.
Two full scale-free medical camps have been conducted in the Kathputli Slum Colony, the most recent in 2013. In excess of 400 patients were provided consultations, medicines and follow-up treatments in the fields of general health, eyes, dental, gynaecology, paediatric and orthopaediatric. The next camp is being planned for 2018.
Sanitation Facilities
For many years the Kathputli people had used the nearby field as their toilet. This is also where the children play their games. This unhealthiness, combined with the flies and animals bringing the germs back in to the colony, is the main reasons that sicknesses and diseases prevail amongst the people. In 2011 Helping Hands staff constructed for the Kathputli community a 20 cubicle community toilet block (10 men’s & 10 women’s). Since then Nagar Nigam has provided another 20-30 portable toilets.
Water Provision
And in 2015 we completed ‘the water tap in every home’ project whereby daily running water has been provided to more than 800 community homes. This project was done in conjunction with the local Nagar Nigam and the Jyoti Nagar Water Board. Until this time the women were dependant upon water trucks and the pumping of water from the few surrounding bore pumps. Now women are able to daily clean their homes, wash their clothes and kitchen vessels, and bathe themselves and their families. Through this we have seen a significant improvement in our school children’s health, and thus a decrease in sickness related absences from school. Our next community health/hygiene work will be a drainage project for clearing the slum of waste water.
Nutritional Foods
In 2015, to supplement the improved health of our school children with a healthy diet, Helping Hands commenced an organic vegetable project on the rooftop of our school buildings. Starting with just a couple of vegetables the variety of crop increased to include tomatoes, spinach, mint, beans, brinjal, various gourds and of course chillies. On moving to our new land and facilities in 2018 two bighas of land is set aside for expanding our organic vegetable project. Not only will there be a nutritional health benefit for students, but there will be training in agriculture, and sales of supplementary vegetables will support the project.
