E-Paper
Community health in the hands local women
Community health in the hands local women
A local woman is the best choice for grassroots work, especially when it comes to delivering on community and rural health, a FRCH study concludes.
The preference is mainly because of her capacity to care, her apolitical stance and her willingness to be of use to family and community. (The conclusion has gained currency after the village health guides employed by the Centre, 92% of whom are men, failed to deliver the goods.)
The criteria for selection of the woman community health worker include:
· Acceptance and nomination by community
· Motivation preceding education levels
· Pre-literate state is no bar
· Support of family
· Daughter-in-law of the village who remains in residence
These guidelines have been formulated after pooling and studying the experiences of organisations working for community health.
In fact, there are various organisations such as SEARCH, Jamkhed, AWARE, SEWA and SEWA - Rural, Banwasi Seware Ashram, CINI and RUHSA which do good work, but their approaches are different and they hardly talk to each other.
Sample these: Search and FRCH are research organisations, Jamkhed, Banwasi and RUHSA have a missionary approach and AWARE has a background of reaching for health by tackling human rights and empowerment issues. The health initiatives of SEWA and SEWA-Rural are based on the spirit of women's unionisation and organisation of health co-operatives.
