Newsletter, NOVEMBER 2007 - Part 2

MGVS staff planning session at office.

COMMUNITY HEALTH ACTIVITIES

Village Health Workers updates: 14 Village Health Workers have completed the health training to treat minor illness, attend deliveries in the village, help government health program in their area and provide health awareness and advice to their co-villagers. They all received the medical kit and a certificate after completing the training. During the training all the Village Health Workers had an opportunity to spend five days in Christian Hospital Chama, Tehri Garhwal to experience hospital system and to attend deliveries at hospitals. All these VHW’s are now working closely with the government health workers in their village to provide immunization to children under five, Antenatal/Postnatal care to mothers and to help deliveries.

Panchayat Health Committees: This year MGVS has taken initiative to activate the Panchayats Health Committees in every Gram Panchayats (Local Self Government), so that these committees can work towards improving the health status of their village. Up to last year the health committees were only in the Panchayats records - none of them were active. But this year MGVS was able to organized seven Health committees in seven Gram Panchayats and to help them to make plans for improving health status of their village.

Mother and Child festivals: Three mother and child festivals were held with the cooperation of the government health department. The purposes of these festivals are to provide vaccines to under five children’s, ANC/PNC care to mothers and health talks. All these festival were attended by Govt. ANM and provided the health services.

HIV/AIDS awareness training workshops: From January to October a total of Fifteen HIV/AIDS one day training workshops were held. Three workshops were conducted in schools, Junior and High Schools: 109 girls and 150 boys received the training. Three workshops were held with the men and women: 73 people received training. Six workshops were held with the women and men self-help groups; 41 men and 87 women received training. Two workshops were held with the sewing and knitting groups; 27 young girls received the training.

School health program: MGVS is running a program called School health program, the purpose of this program is to improve health and hygiene of school children and to train teachers about national child protection policy, and first aid medical. MGVS conducted two one day training workshops for the teachers in the month of March and October 2007. 22 teachers from 22 schools attended the training workshop. All teachers received the first Aid Medical Kit and a copy of National Child Protection Policy. Also, the Village Health Workers are regularly visit these schools once every three months to provide health talks to school children. So far children in six schools have received the health checkups from the government health staff.

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GENDER SENSITIZATION TRAINING: Eight gender training workshops were held with the eight women’s self-help groups from different villages with 247 women taking part. Seven gender training workshops were held in Junior, High and Intermediate Schools. The purpose of this training is to help villagers to treat boys and girls equally in the family and society. Gender difference is one of the problems in this area.

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VISITS TO HIMALAYAN ACTION RECHERCHÉ CENTRE (HARC)

Two visits were made to the HARC Field office at Naugaon Block, Uttarkashi, Uttrakhand. HARC is a well-known NGO in Uttrakhand State. HARC Activities include:
➤ 4 Farmers Federations (federation has over 300 member)
➤ 12 Organic Fruit and Vegetables Product Associations (138 farmers)
➤ Women’s multipurpose cooperative Nawagaon (103 members)
➤ Training programs for villagers, NGOS, and Govt. officials at their Center

The first visit was in March . All MGVS field staff along with five members of Satyon women’s organic cooperative and five women from the village self-help groups joined the exposure visit.
The second visit was in October. 12 women officers from seven women’s self -help groups and 9 officers from the four men’s self-–help groups along with three MGVS staff joined the exposure visit.

Here are some of the HARC activities which we observed and experienced:
➥ One classroom session was held for groups at HARC training center for introduction of their fieldwork and strategy.
➥ The women cooperative secretary talked about their cooperative activities and their food processing unit. They are selling many local grains in packages, such as beans, millet, chilly powder, local red rice, and processed food. They have a well equipped food processing unit.
➥ Our group visited a Farmers Federation vegetable collection centre and their office; it was good sharing by the federation president and employees: It was encouraging to visit the Rawani Ghati Fruit and Vegetables Production Farmers Association. More than one thousand farmers are selling their agriculture and fruit product through this association.
➥ Our group also met with a women’s self-help group, and learned about their activities.
➥ We also visited a village call Norni and met a pilot farmer who is well known in that area for growing fruits and fruits plants. He supplies fruit plants to the Govt. Horticulture Department. He has big Kiwi fruit garden.

After three years, Kiwi fruits in MGVS villages are bearing fruit.

➥ We learned some technics for making organic fertilizers, such as Bio dynamic Tree pest, Wormy culture and some techniques of organic pesticides making.

Photosynthetic Bacteria liquid now read to use in farm.

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MICAH NETWORK ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL CONSULTATION ON MARGINALIZED PEOPLE

Surender Singh (far right) attended Micah Network Workshop in Malaysia.

In October, Surender Singh, Coordinator, attended a Micah Network “Asia-Pacific Regional Consultation on Marginalized People –our Christian Response,” hosted Malaysian CARE. More than three hundred people from Christian NGOs and church pastors and leaders from the Asia Pacific region attended the workshop. Focus of the workshop was to increase capacity to work with the marginalized people, to share experiences and network with peers, to learn practical skills from case studies and workshops, to explore good practices and lessons learned, to grasp a deeper understanding of integral mission. 4 cross cutting issues were tackled through bible teaching, plenary sessions, case studies and workshops: HIV/ AIDS, Gender, Advocacy, and Stigma.

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Once again we at MGVS would like to thank all of you for your ongoing support and interest in MGVS activities. Please keep us in your prayers, and we look forward to sharing with you future news of our activities.

Surender Singh, Coordinator