Community Health Project

The project titled, ‘Integrated approach to Community Empowerment & Health’, launched in May 2017. RUPCHA along with all the beneficiaries of Jahangirpuri, Delhi gratefully acknowledge the financial & moral support received from the prestigious organization MANOS UNIDAS, Spain and its team.  

Introduction: Taking into consideration of the situation of the people in the slums of Delhi region, RUPCHA conceptualized an integrated community development project focusing on Women & Children. The slum dwellers are generally the migrant workers having come from various states of north India for the sake of employment and those migrant workers live in clusters in the peripheries of urban area, where basic facilities for living are very minimum.  These migrant workers are not officially enrolled in the government records, due to which they are neglected from all the government schemes & privileges. Even these slum dwellers don’t have their names registered for getting the public provisions. They don’t have proper drainage & sanitation facilities and the waste disposals remain in the open drainage right in front of living. It is also sad to see there is open defecation happening in the slum right at the roads and open drainage. Through this program, we aim to empower them by organizing health education programs, awareness & animation.

How the problem affects the population: Slum areas are characterized by a complete absence of basic amenities and facilities like drinking water, toilets and bathrooms, drainage system and garbage disposal facilities because of which various infectious non-communicable and communicable diseases especially respiratory infections, tuberculosis and diarrhea/dysentery, skin problems and mental illness crop up. Some of them are suspected to be TB & HIV/AIDS patients but unaware of the disease. The most common diseases of the area are directly related with poor personal and environmental hygiene.

Main objective of the project:  To empower the Slum dwellers and migrant workers by organizing health education programs, awareness & animation.

General Objectives:

• To provide integrated health awareness to the slum dwellers
• To increase the awareness on TB and related diseases
• To form health clubs through Self Help Groups
• To campaign for health schemes and constitutional rights

The program has been implemented in five blocks (D, E, EE, G & K blocks) of Jahangirpuri Slum. A fraction of the slum people, i.e. 42,500 people of 8,500 families benefited directly and around 100,000 people benefited indirectly. We have faced many challenges in implementing the activities there but accepted all the challenges to help the poor people.

The project mainly focused on eliminating the primary problems of the area such as high prevalence rate of communicable diseases, NCDs, life-style diseases, diseases due to poor sanitation & hygiene both at personal and community levels. It also helped the community in availing their rights and government schemes, thus reducing their financial strain and improving their livelihood. It reduced the impact of social evil elements of the area & atrocities against women, improved personal family relationships, etc. As a solution to the problems, we organized various community mobilization activities, awareness creation activities, advocacy programs, counselling programs, programs on CDs & NCDs, healthcare, health rights, hygiene, sanitation, personal problems, domestic violence, drug abuse, mental health, health camps, etc.

Some of the activities organized were:

• Awareness programs on various topics.
• Helped many to enroll themselves in government records, enabling them to avail various government schemes & privileges.
• Medical / screening camps.
• Mid-media activities for mass awareness.
• Sanitation activities such as drainage / sewerage cleaning, cleaning of roads, parks, surroundings of houses & fogging the area.
• Block level meetings to discuss various issues, to get the feedback & active participation from the community.
• General & individual counselling programs for the community.
• Referred the needy patients for further check ups.  
• Equipment for persons with disability (PwD) and the elderly were provided.
• ANC & PNC care services.
• Food & clothes for flood victims.

 

We are happy to state that we have achieved our overall objectives / goals within the stipulated time. We were able to raise the living standard and knowledge level of the community to a greater extent, especially of women & children.

After a 3-phase period, in July 2023, the project implementation is handed over to the empowered local community guided and led by the Sisters of Destitute (SD) congregation at Jahangirpuri and is going on well. Our sincere thanks to Sisters of Destitute at Jahangirpuri, the block level coordinators, the volunteer groups, self-help groups and community people for cooperating with us in the implementation of the program for achieving the planned results.