Ankit Kumar
Shivica Mathur
Onkar Khude
Shreya Manandhar
SNEHA MAHESHWARI
Kritharth Kunwar
K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research
Preeti Rawat
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Every year about 1.8 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia. A simple practice of hand washing with soap could protect about 1 out of every three young children who get sick with diarrhea and 1 out of 5 children who fall sick due to respiratory infections like pneumonia. To effectively fight with germs, it is very important to wash hands with soap and not just running water. A good hand washing education and access to soap can improve school attendance of children and also improve their developmental growth. The hand washing practice is equally important for adults who fall sick due to communicable diseases and other germs. Access to soap is always not very basic for everyone in the society.
Doctors For You is the NGO partner of Sealed Air’s Soap For Hope initiative. They recycle the used soaps from the multiple hotels. The program is a multi-sector benefiting program as the program provides livelihood opportunity, sanitation & hygiene uplift-ment and health promotion. The project provides livelihood to the employees of this project, supports community by distributing recycled soap and support hotel chains by collecting their waste soaps. Thus the overall impact of the program can also be measured through three categories that are livelihood support, community support and waste management.
As a part of Sealed Air, Diversey Care products is offering sustainable cleaning, sanitation and hygiene solution in partnership with DoctorsForYou, increasing their market penetration along with image enhancement in Indian market.
“Soap for Hope is a real example of creating shared value for all parties involved - our customers, the NGOs, the local communities and Sealed Air employees."
The services provided are treatment of health ailments and preventive services i.e. Immunization, tuberculosis prevention and control, family planning services and malnutrition control through Community Based management of acute malnutrition.
Key programs carried out by the DoctorsForYou to accomplish their goals are as follows,
1) Start of Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) at MRVC DFY Health center Mankhurd:
Malnutrition is a major public health problem in the area with 36% prevalence among children below 5 years of age. For such children, DFY launched CMAM program in October 2015. During this time period, 135 children were registered. These children were given nutritional supplements in form of RUTF and Hyderabad Mix.
2) Tuberculosis control awareness campaign and Nutrition Supplements to Drug Resistant Tuberculosis patients
Malnutrition increases the risk of tuberculosis infection while Tuberculosis disease also leads to malnutrition. In Tuberculosis patients, adequate nutrition acts as medicine and improves the overall immunity and treatment outcome of disease. In association with Pharmaceutical division of Johnson & Johnson Janssen, DFY provided protein rich dry rations to 30 MDR/XDR TB patients. This resulted in zero default rates among TB patients.
3) Engaging with Aanganwadi centres:
Anganwadi centres are focal point for delivering preventive & promoting maternal and child health program under ICDS program. DFY works with 40 Anganwadi centres in Mankhurd. DFY team organizes health awareness sessions for mother, malnutrition and immunization session for children at Anganwadi centres. DFY mobilized toys for children attending Anganwadi centres
4) Nutrition Week Celebration and distribution of Toys for Anganwadi
Every year 1st week of September is celebrated as Nutrition Week by Anganwadi Workers under ICDS project for promotion of Nutrition among pregnant women and children. This year, DFY team collaborated with Anganwadi workers under the leadership of Dr Ravikant Singh (President, DFY) and Ms Prema Ghatge (CDPO-ICDS, Mankhurd). On 1st September, the program for nutrition promotion was Nutrition Week Celebration and distribution of Toys for Anganwadi organized in Ambedkar Nagar (PAP colonies). The program was attended by 52 Anganwadi workers of area. Importance of 1000 days, starting from detection of pregnancy to first 2 years of life of child was explained by Dr Ravikant. On this occasion, Toys were distributed for children attending Anganwadi Centre by Goonj Organization and DFY.
5) Certificate course for nursing assistant
In slum areas, the health care services are provided by private clinics of general practioners (GPs). These GPs hire girls and women from neighbourhood as assistant, at a very modest salary as these women and girls are untrained. At the same time, DFY also faced difficulty in hiring qualified staff for community outreach as well as health promotional activity. Sensing this gap as potential opportunity DFY started 6 months health assistant training course for adolescent girls and women from the community. The course was tailor made for candidates with minimum qualification of 8th standard. The course material was also converted in Hindi. In the first batch, 13 candidates completed the course. Out of 13, 10 candidates got immediate placement. The second batch of 15 candidates is currently undergoing training.
6) Mehandi Classes
Mehandi classes for adolescent girls and women: In Mankhurd and Govandi area where DFY is providing health services, majority of population belongs to Muslim community. Applying Mehandi is practiced commonly and this is a source of income for many women, who work as freelancer or from their home. During this year, DFY trained 78 women and girls for 3 months in 4 batches.
7) Community engagement activities
DFY team collaborated with Khula Aasman in organizing recreational activities for adolescent boys and girls from the community. The activities carried out were music and dance classes, outdoor games, sanitation drives, health and hygiene promotion etc. These activities prevent these children in engaging addiction or mingling with antisocial elements
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