Saturday, February 24, 2007

Blogs becoming new fad to raise social issues

The Pioneer, Bhopal edition Feb. 23, 2007

Blogs, which were earlier used to talk about ones work, travel or personal diaries, are now becoming new media platforms to raise social issues.

Blog is user-generated web pages, which an individual or a group generates to share views with people at large. If need be one can keep it private too. Many platforms like blogspot, wordpress, and rediff provide a facility to make blogs free of cost. You just need an email ID and you can do it. It is new techie now-a-days and thousand come up every day.

In a new trend in the State, people are increasingly making and using blogs to voice concern on social issues like maternal mortality, education, water, situation of children in the State.
There are some old one like www.safemotherhood.blogsopt.com. This is managed by the Campaign to Raise Concern on Maternal Deaths, which is working towards raising concern on the issue of high maternal deaths in the State. Many stories which have appeared in The Pioneer on the issue also feature in there, with due credit.

Blogs help to give expression to ones creative challenge, but one needs to devote time too shares view with it, says Anil Gulati, the Bhopal blogger. It is easy to make them but tough to maintain them, one gets pressurised to keep blogs fresh. I update them very regularly adds Gulati.

He contributes on blogs like www.newswhichmatter.blogspot.com, which focuses on news and view from the State and www.mpchildinfo.blogspot.com focusing on issues of women and children of the State. Both of them along with madhyapradesh.blogspot.com are mainly focussed on the State perspective. One on photographs from the State is http://madyapradesh1.blogspot.com is managed by Sandip, who is a freelance photographer.
Though this may be start but is a newer phenomenon to raise and share issues not only within the State but across on web world.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

NGOs need to involve communities : Bashir

Hindustan Times, Bhopal
HT Correspondent, Bhopal, February 16, 2007

A STATE-LEVEL meeting of campaign partners supporting the promotion of safe motherhood and raising concern on maternal mortality in Madhya Pradesh was held here on Friday.
More than 60 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) representing network organisations like Madhya Pradesh Voluntary Health Association, Madhya Pradesh Samaj Sewa Sanstha, Madhya Pradesh Jan Adhikar Manch, Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti, Central Regional Board of Health Services, Mahila Chetna Manch, Vikas Samvad, Department of Journalism, Makhan Lal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism shared their concern and outcomes of their efforts with communities and elected representatives.

Inaugurating the meeting, UNICEF Madhya Pradesh office State Representative Hamid El Bashir said civil society organisations should engage communities at a high level to push accountabilities within the system so that better care was delivered to women and children.
He added that Madhya Pradesh contributed to 10 per cent of maternal deaths in the country while India contributed 20 per cent of maternal deaths in the world. He said it was possible to reduce these deaths, but there was a need for sustained commitment to deliver for benefit of women and children in the State.

UNICEF Communication officer Anil Gulati spoke on the need for community empowerment and civil society’s engagement on the issue of women health. He said the media had helped to bring the issue to forefront but there was a need to take this momentum forward.

Makhan Lal Chaturvedi University of Journalism Department of Journalism’s PP Singh about the role of media in women’s health while Sachin Jain of Vikas Samvad stressed on media advocacy efforts in raising issues of women and child health.

Madhya Pradesh Voluntary Health Association’s Manoj Joshi, State Coordinator Jan Adhikar Manch Sandesh Bansal, Central Board of Regional Health Services Dr Sheela Bhambal, Mahila Chetna Manch Deep Damani, and Madhya Pradesh Samaj Sewa Sanstha Father Mathew and Sister Joicy spoke about their efforts in various parts of the State to help bring much needed momentum on the issue of maternal deaths and promoting safe motherhood state wide.

UNICEF Health Officer Dr Narayan Goankar presented the findings of maternal deaths audit in the districts of Guna and Shivpuri. UNICEF Planning officer Veena Bandyopadhyay presented a possible option of setting up of ‘Child Rights Observatory’ in Madhya Pradesh, which could act as a third party for monitoring rights of children and women. Himanshu Sikka of Infrastructure Professional Enterprise also participated in the meeting.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

MP anganwadis provide nutritious food

Rubina Khan Shapoo

Wednesday, January 24, 2007 (Shivpuri):


Madhya Pradesh has the highest level of malnutrition amongst children under six in India but here is a story on a mini revolution that's successfully fighting it. An NDTV Correspondent travelled to another historical hunger spot Shivpuri to find that with a little initiative not only can malnutrition be fought but set new benchmarks.

MP has now become the first state in the country that's providing a nutritious a la carte menu to its youngsters. Earlier the children could barely walk now they run. Their faces are lit with excitement as kids wait for surprise packet they get each day at the anganwadi centre in Badharwaas. One of the leader is 45-year-old Shakuntala, an anganwadi worker known to people as amma or chachi.

Special menu

Last year when the collector asked for suggestion to make the aanganwadi more attractive for children, Shakuntala Sharma and a few other workers suggested that apart from the standard panjiri and daliya, they cook different food items for the children. The recipes, which would not cost more than the prescribed Rs 2 per child daily and also meet the calorie requirements set out by the Supreme Court. That suggestion is now part of a daily routine.

From October 2006, Shivpuri is the only district in Madhya Pradesh, which has 15 different recipes under the supplementary nutrition programme at all the 25 centres where the aanganwadi workers have volunteered to cook. For cooking the special meals they get the money at the beginning of each month. The result is phenomenal, almost 220 of those registered in the centres actually come here every day a five times increase in attendance. "Earlier the number would fluctuate between 35-60. Now you come any day, you will find from pregnant ladies to children, all of them are present," said Shakuntala.

No malnutrition death

In fact Shakuntala proudly claims that in the last five years no child has died due to malnutrition. This in an area where malnutrition deaths were amongst the highest in the country. Shakuntala says she is not harassed for bribes by officers to get her salary nor does she have to beg them for supplies for the aanganwadi. If only Shivpuri could set an example for the rest of the state, where today there are 49,784 aanganwadi workers while the need is for nearly double that number. What's more that 50 per cent say they have not been paid and 70 per cent say they are harassed by senior officials. It is a situation the collector says they can reverse.

"We have a lot of interaction with the aanganwadi workers through our follow up camps, routine meetings and visits. We try to keep them motivated," said Manohar Aganani, collector, Shivpuri.
She is allowed to speak her mind and her views on improving the childcare system. On being asked the best part is her work is appreciated and these are great motivating factors that indeed make a huge difference in combating a severe problem like malnutrition.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Govt Schemes : It is same old story

Sonia Khandelwal, Indore, January 23, 2007

THE LOFTY schemes of Madhya Pradesh government for promoting institutional deliveries — for bringing down Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) — need a reality check at ground level as was highlighted by an incident in a village in Barwani district raising several questions about awareness and implementation of these schemes.

Twentyone-year-old Santoshi Raju from Rajpur was referred to the District Hospital at Barwani for delivery, from where she was referred to M Y Hospital here as her blood pressure had increased to a dangerous level. Then started her traumatic journey of running from pillar to post.

“At Barwani, they (the doctors) asked us either to fill a consent form for taking responsibility of complicated delivery (which could mean threat to the lives of either the mother or the child or both) at Barwani or take her to Indore,” Santoshi’s husband Raju, a labourer, told Hindustan Times at the post natal ward.
Not ready to take risk at Barwani, Raju asked Barwani Civil Surgeon Dr B K Sawner to provide him ambulance to take Santoshi to Indore. “But as we did not have Deendayal Antyoday Yojana card, the doctor did not agree for the ambulance,” Raju added.
However, Deendayal Yojana card is not required for ambulance service. Despite repeated requests when the hospital authorities did not agree, an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) from Rajpur Sarika Gopal Mukesh, who had accompanied them to Barwani, suggested taking Santoshi back to Rajpur.
By this time, Raju, whose family comes under BPL, was penniless and collected funds from donors to take Santoshi back to Rajpur.

Fortunately, the PHC there provided an ambulance and Santoshi was brought to MY Hospital here on time, where she delivered a girl late Thursday night.The incident has exposed the cracks in the system and brings out the true picture painted by the actual implementation of the various welfare schemes of the state government. To start with, Sarika, an ASHA, did not have proper information about Janani Suraksha Yojana, wherein she is supposed to get Rs 600 for bringing any expectant mother to a health facility. Not just this one scheme, she was not aware of many other schemes.

“I have not heard about Janani Suraksha Yojana but during our training, we were told only about our incentives and basic work. They (trainers) never told us about how to tackle serious situations and also about facilities available like ambulance service for taking expecting women to a health facility,” Sarika told Hindustan Times at MY Hospital here.
When asked why the family had no Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana card, Sarika further said, “Almost 50 per cent of the people in our village (Rajpur) do not have this card as on today. The cards are being prepared for a long time and hence not distributed.” Higher medical officials do not want to take any responsibility and have been passing the buck when it came to pinning down the person responsible for such an incident. Barwani Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) Dr Lakshmi Baghel, when contacted on telephone about the incident, said, “As far as I am concerned, we had organised fairs and programmes to create awareness about Janani Suraksha Yojana at all the villages under our jurisdiction. If the volunteers are still unaware about it, we will try to create more awareness about it.”

Dr Sawner when contacted over telephone first said “I had given permission for providing ambulance to Santoshi”, only to retract later saying “Santoshi was referred to Indore by Barwani District Hospital gynaecologist Dr Sushila Kumrawat. Santoshi’s relatives did not approach me for ambulance.”
The above incident raises several questions. Like inadequate training of ASHAs, no proper publicity about various schemes of the government amid the target group; officials not bothered about proper implementation of schemes and last but not the least lack of awareness on part of the individual (here both Santoshi and Raju are illiterate) about their rights and the facilities available for them.