Saving Women’s lives
Behavior change material on Maternal Health Entitlements and Birth Preparedness for rural women
About You
Location
Project Street Address
various villages in districts of Gujarat & Rajasthan
Project City
Navsari, Sabarkantha, Mahesana
Project Province/State
Gujarat & Rajsthan
Project Postal/Zip Code
N.A.
Project Country
India
Your idea
Year organization founded:
1984
Year initiative began:
2005
Service/activity focus:
Other
If Service/activity focus is "other" please define in 1-2 words below:
Women's Health Rights
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Project URL
Name Your Project
Saving Women’s lives
Describe Your Idea
Behavior change material on Maternal Health Entitlements and Birth Preparedness for rural women
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
Behavior change material on Maternal Health Entitlements and Birth Preparedness for rural women
Describe what makes your idea unique--different from all others in the field.
A handy picture book, visually attractive, written from a rights perspective providing information to women and their family about their maternal health services entitlements from public health system. Since women have limited education as opportunities; information has been presented based on their literacy levels and socio-cultural realities.
The tool, a wall calendar, providing opportunity for dialogue between the pregnant woman, her family and health provider to plan for birth and prepare for complications.
- Is hung in a prominent place so that the plan is visible to the woman and her family for easy and timely access of important information.
-Made of durable material to meet the harsh field conditions.
-A monitoring tool addressing the husbands is also included.
Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how did you create them?
CHETNA works on the issues of maternal mortality as a member of following networks:
1. White Ribbon Alliance India (WRAI) has been working for Safe Motherhood (SM), in India. CHETNA has been a partner. Realizing a crucial need to work in Rajasthan on Maternal mortality, initiated the Rajasthan Chapter of WRA called SUMA (Surakshit Matritva)
2. Women’s Rights Advocacy Partnership (WHRAP), South Asia- A partnership has been formed with a view to create regional advocacy mechanism for the Sexual and Health Rights (SRHR) of women
3. CHETNA Regional Resource Centre- CHETNA has been identified by the Government of India, to support implementation of the Reproductive and Child Health – II (RCH-!!) programme. CHETNA partners with local NGOs working in the state for effective implementation of these programmes, not only of GOI, but also Government of Gujarat
In which sector do these partners work? (Check all that apply)
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact.
Service providers, Women, families & Communities are educated do develop collective plans & identify, life saving, services.
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation.
A pre and post test for a sample of five hundred women has been designed to measure the increase in awareness levels. A baseline and end line evaluation to measure access to services has been planned. A baseline to understand the awareness levels of 90 adolescent girls has been done to be followed by a representative sample at the end line.
A monitoring evaluation study is being made to judge the over all impact of CHETNA’s intervention in the field area for behavior change during Ante natal period, pregnancy as well as post natal. The study will take data on how many persons used the tool and for which concerns was the tool useful. The questionnaire will cover the impact of the tool among the community members.
Is there a policy intervention element to your innovation?
Through the booklet and the tool, CHETNA is trying to
-Ensure improved access to maternal health care services
- Provide information to women about services they are entitled to in a manner in which they can understand.
How many people does your innovation serve or plan to serve? Exactly who will benefit from your innovation?
The booklet is creating awareness about maternal health services & providing support in planning & creating dialogue for approximately 3000 pregnant women.
The calendar is useful for imparting information to approximately- 4003 pregnant women Gujarat & 1000 in Rajashtan The key decision to be influenced with help of booklet & tool is that women are entitled to receive information about their health in a manner which they can understand and find it practical to utilize the services provided
What is the key decision that you are trying to influence through your innovation/design?
The booklet is creating awareness about the maternal health services and providing support in planning and creating a dialogue for approximately 3000
The calendar is useful for imparting information to approximately- 4003 calendars in Gujarat and 1000 in Rajashtan
The key decision to be influenced with the help of the booklet and tool is that women are entitled to receive information about their health in a manner which they can understand and find it practical to utilize the services provided
What have you learned about how people respond to your innovation/design?
The response to the innovative, simple booklet and tool is that if women and their family members are provided with information in a manner which makes them understand the matters, they use it & take action. There have been instances of women’s lives being saved by the use of information provided by the booklet & the tool in the far flung areas for example- use of the emergency ambulance services in the tribal areas of Navsari & blood bank services in an emergency case. The community member.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
Currently the initiative is being sustained by funds from various existing projects. It is our belief that if mainstreamed, the booklet and tool will be of great value for saving lives among the marginalized and underprivileged women from the weaker sections of society. It is hoped that if the Government of India will take note of the effort and mainstream the booklet and the tool, the results may be very positive. If developed, it will result in maximum utilization of health services provided by the government due to enhanced understanding of women on their health rights.
Financing source
Annual budget
Operational budget of CHETNA (2007-08): (as per the Balance sheet of Aug.18, 2008: Indian Rupees 3,34,62,684/-
Annual revenue generated
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Number of staff (full-time, part-time, volunteers)
Total of 55 persons. All are full time workers including programme & administration.
What are the main financial barriers, and how do you plan to address them?
At present these are printed in small quantities to be disseminated in the field areas of CHETNA. The effort is minuscule, and looking at the gigantic proportions of the issue of maternal health and mortality, is useful to very small numbers, which may be like the tip of the iceberg. The initiative needs to be mainstreamed to reach out all pregnant women & their families to be able to provide required results
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow and scale the initiative?
The tool provides information about birth preparedness, women’s rights and facilities provided by public health systems at the community level. Appropriate training enhances understanding of stakeholders.
The tool is simple and replicable hence useful to all maternal mortality programmes if mainstreamed..
If integrated in public health system with appropriate training the community members may internalize the concept.
With appropriate direction, initiative is self sustainable.
The Story
What was the motivation or defining moment that led to the creation of this innovation? Tell the story.
When working on women’s rights advocacy project, I tried to collect information on Maternal Health entitlements. The information was scattered and for literates. The need to inform the rights holder in a manner which is appropriate for her was felt so as to enable her to access maternal health services. This realization resulted in the creation of the picture book on entitlements.
While developing a newsletter in Gujarati/Hindi for semi literates on maternal health, I realized a need for a tool to actively engage women, their families and service providers in planning for birth and so an insert was developed. Feedback on the use of the tool on its usefulness and practicality helped to further innovate and enhance the visibility of the tool.The cultural practice of hanging calendars at home was utilized to develop a wall calendar for a prominent place in the house of the pregnant woman.
We ensured that the calendar is sturdy to be able to survive the vagaries of nature and weather. They have been found to be unhurt in the most adverse circumstances; even the robust mice in rural areas have not been able to destroy them.
Please name and provide a personal bio of the social innovator behind this initiative.
Vd. Smita Bajpai; Programme Officer, Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery. Involved in Development of Women's Health with gender sensitive, holistic perspective integrating traditional health, healing practices for 18 years
Expertise: Project Design, Management; Monitoring, Evaluation; Capacity building training; Developing IEC material, Documentation/ research, Networking with NGOs in Maternal Health, Reproductive and Sexual Health, Women's Work, Traditional Medicine
At what stage is this initiative?
Implementation and impact .
What resources would you need to take your initiative to the next stage?
i. A systematic, professional assessment of the impact of the tool for enhancing awareness and saving lives.
ii. Finance and other resources for mass production and dissemination at the state, national and South Asia level.
iii. Linkages with National Health Delivery system for mainstreaming provision of information to women on their entitlements for maternal health
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate? (Confidential)
Being an Ashoka Fellow, Ms. Indu Capoor receives information on the network’s work/activities related to CHETNA’s field of work- which is health and rights of the marginalized women, young people and children. Main incentive to participate in the contest is to share some of CHETNA’s rich experience in the field of women’s health. CHETNA believes addressing health needs of underprivileged and marginalised is of crucial importance for speeding up the course of over all development.
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| The Ashoka Awards.doc | 708 KB |
