Sanchetana Community Helath & Research Centre

Introduction:

  • Sanchetana Community Health and Research Centre (Sanchetana CHRC) is a nonprofit organization working with urban slum communities of Ahmedabad, Gujarat since 1983. The organization works at Behrampura, Danilimda and Narol wards of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).
  • Sanchetana CHRC is committed to improve the health and health outcomes of the women and adolescents, meeting the educational needs of under privileged children and advancing the concept of income generation and women empowerment. We are deeply dedicated to fulfill every expectation of leadership, hope; coordination and empowerment.
  • Registration Number: E/ 5223, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Activities done by the organization:

Health:

  • Creating and training health leaders
  • Facilitate the health leaders to reach out to the community at large through various programs. At present more focus of health intervention has been on Reproductive Health of women and adolescent girls.
  • Detailed information is spread about different topics like COVID-19, Male-Female Reproductive Organs & functions, Chromosome, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, HIV/ AIDS, Menstruation and Menstrual problem, Care during Pregnancy & Neonatal care, risk during pregnancy, Breast Cancer, Cancer of Cervix, Contraceptive Methods, Abortion, Infertility, Prolapsed uterus, Leucorrhoea etc. to the community. Apart from that a number of exhibitions and campaign are held regularly to reach out to community at large.
  • Health Club:
  • Health clubs is an important initiative in this direction, in which adolescent girls and women are trained as Sexual and Reproductive Health trainers and they impart the same to the other women and girls in their areas. It is important to note that they do this voluntarily and in their own houses. At present around 50 health clubs and they imparted training on various topics of Reproductive and Sexual Health to the girls and women in their areas. Each group consists of around 6– 9 girls. Meeting with each group is organized almost every week in the slums where they reside. Networking is done also with schools to impart adolescent health education to the adolescent girls and boys in the schools. Around 1000 girls and boys were reached out every year through Adolescent Health Programs in schools. The field centers continuously provide information of diseases prevalent at any time of the year. They are more like Resource centers for Reproductive and Sexual Health of women and young girls.
  • Medical Campaign:
  • Urban slum areas often there are no facilities available for basic health facilities. For improving health and wellbeing of the poor who live in slums Sanchetana organize medical camps among community.  Most of the people do not know what help they can get from visiting a doctor. Due to basic health information causes poor health and lower life expectancy or quality of life. Campaign helps urban disadvantaged people to conscious of the impact of diseases and to provide them information about the disease if they want to learn more about it. 

Education:

  • Community school is an initiative taken by Sanchetana for providing quality education to the urban poor children below the age group of 12.  Community school focused on creating a learning space where no black boards and punishments. It creates basic knowledge on physics and electronics. It organized in collaboration with FIRST Global India, STEM Education Trust and Curio O Box. Total 60 children participated till date. Due to pandemic situation online classes are organized

Skill Development:

  • Multiple vocational training sessions were an integral part of the program to teach relevant skills to the girls, as to make sustain in the outside world as an independent entity. Women who never even stepped out of their houses for doing something other than purchasing vegetables were introduced to the concept of ‘self-dependency’ as a part of the program, putting them on a trajectory to generate their own sources of income to support their families.

Thus, as a part of this program, multiple Vocational Training Centers are established in different areas of Behrampura. It included training like:

  • Mehendi class
  • Sewing class
  • Computer class
  • Beauty parlor
  • Community class

Many girls of these areas approached community centers to learn various things. Many secured jobs after learning such skills. These skills have now carved a way for them to earn money on their own, while at home. The results of the trainings provided are not only limited to their own communities but also goes beyond their areas.

Income Generation:

Income Generative alternatives are significant among women and girls in the slums. Empowering women as sustainable business owners create a chain of positive impacts by building their financial independence and strengthening their capacity to contribute to their communities and the environment. Sanchetana plan to create income generative models where women and girls entrepreneurs shall set up livelihood units of sustainable environment products. Such entrepreneurs shall involve other women and girls in these activities providing livelihood opportunities to them.

  • Products made up of newspapers that can replace plastic products: An entrepreneurs unit of women and girls will be setup for creating paper products that can replace plastic products in the day to day life.
  • Cloth bags: Entrepreneur units of women and girls will create cloth bags from waste cloth. The prepared bags will be shared with small merchants with free of cost. Entrepreneurs will be paid with donor support.  
  • Organic compost out of green waste: Entrepreneur unit of women and girls will make organic compost from degradable green waste. Unit will sell the packed compost to the needed people with reasonable cost. 
  • Capital Assistance Program:
  • Capital Assistance is provided to leaders who are doing exemplary work in their areas for their communities. Though the assistance per woman is not very high (From 7500 rupees to 10000 rupees or 20,000 rupees in some cases), the small amount has contributed to their income substantially. The finance is provided only for income generation purpose under this program so they are motivated to go towards income generation. Our approach of empowering them is to motivate them use the money that they earn towards educational or health expenses improving their standard of life. Also the approach protects them from being indebted. It is important to note that they give the money back as they are a part of this objective and they feel responsible towards this money. They very well know that the money given back by then shall help many other women to earn. This increases their ownership towards the program.

Biodegradable Solid Waste Management:

  • Kitchen Garden
  • For supporting the health and nutrition of the community, Sanchetana CHRC came up with an idea of kitchen garden in the slums. Field facilitators shared their learning from pilot project to spread the knowledge of practices in the communities. It is expected that every household should learn how to establish and maintain organic kitchen garden. This garden should contain skillfully mixed and diverse crops including indigenous vegetables, cereals and root crops designed to provide balanced diet to the families. The long-term objective is thus to lead the households to a nutritious healthy lifestyle by including organic vegetables in diet. The trained field facilitators mobilize the community at large taking action for plantation of kitchen garden and impacting nutrition and health.
  • Khamba Compost:
  • Sanchetana strives for maximum waste recovery through composting and aims at zero waste to be disposed on the surrounding lands. The long-term objective is thus to reduce the environmental degradation caused by solid waste. The trained members in the pilot project will mobilize the community for taking action to create Khamba compost and will impact hygiene conditions. By using composting methods to manage the biodegradable waste, we are able to:  Minimise waste that needs to be disposed at land, Reduce the environmental impact of disposal sites as the bio-degradable waste fraction largely is to blame for the polluting leachate and the methane problems, Benefit the soil by using organic compost instead of chemical fertilisers.
  • Our Locations in Ahmedabad:
  • Behrampura
  • Danilimda
  • Narol wards of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC)