Health Awareness and Livelihoods

In April 2014 we embarked on a four-year programme with the Kiran Society, aiming to reduce poverty and hunger and to improve the health of mothers – and an estimated 9,000 children under the age of five in 50 targeted villages in the Varanasi and Mizrapur districts of Uttar Pradesh state.

The project’s 26-strong team of community-based workers set up 40 new women-led self-help groups, and strengthened existing ones, so that women could become agents of change – and to alleviate the deep poverty which lies at the root of poor health and disability in rural India.

Health awareness was raised through training for local health workers, anganwadi (village-based nursery workers), and post- and antenatal workers. Kiran Society’s well-established and high-quality rehabilitation services assisted up to 1,000 disabled children and young people, and the whole community was able to benefit from increased disability awareness.