Citizen care – Page 4

13 Jul

Hunarbaaz Babli!

Today, we introduce Babli, a newly elected ward counselor of Muradpur village from Bhulosa Danapur panchayat, Patna.

We first met Babli when we were associated with World Health Partners to ensure that drugs to check TB were being consumed in a timely manner by those fighting it. Babli had seen Seva Setu’s active involvement in this program and had walked up to us asking whether she could be a part of the action. A couple of discussions later, she was on-board, active as a field executive.

On having worked actively on monitoring the government’s VHND programs and getting malnourished children from her neighborhood admitted to the local Nutritional Rehabilitation Center (NRC), she took up Seva Setu’s Skill India program and helped set up stitching centers in three villages in her panchayat.

Babli receiving a certificate of training for stitching from another of our field volunteers Abhay Anand

Babli and the team she helped assemble to get trained in stitching.

Babli today has a vision for where she wants to see her village in five years’ time. Her stint with Seva Setu has exposed her to a number of ways in which women and children from her village can live healthy lives and also double up as income generators for their respective households. Setting up a robust drainage system, connectivity to nearby towns through well-connected roads and ensuring each house has a toilet are a part of her immediate action items. We are pleased to aid her in setting up the initial capital in getting some of these projects started off.

We see a fantastic opportunity to help the Bablis of tomorrow. At Seva Setu, the range of activities we involve ourselves in, invariably exposes our field executives to the various pain-points the common man suffers from. Additionally, our model also shows through actionable work on how some of these pain points can be circumvented. The hope and aspiration we see in Babli’s eyes fuels our drive to be the “setu” we envisioned to be – between those willing to serve and those who cannot help themselves.

Pleased to hear about Babli? Want to meet many others on the ground who are as active and determined to bring about a change? Want to lead a team of such spirited individuals into building something worthwhile? Drop a note right away – we’ll be happy for you to be involved!

Work done with: Abhay Anand ji

26 Jun

An Audit of the Health Sub Centers (Phulwari Sharif, Patna)

At Seva Setu, our efforts are two-fold in ensuring that existing government infrastructure reaches the last mile: one line of our effort involves hand-holding and providing innovative interventions to make existing infrastructure work better and the other involves strong advocacy to urge relevant stakeholders in improving the existing infrastructure.

In an attempt at our advocacy – we were curious to know how the state’s Health Sub Centers were functioning. The HSC, as envisioned by the National Rural Health Mission, is meant to be the first point of contact by the community for basic healthcare. An Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife (ANM) is supposed to man these clinics and treat and dispense non-critical cases, referring the critical ones to the Primary Health Centers (PHCs). These centers are normally located in every panchayat as against the PHCs, which usually cover one block. By the design of it, it rightly should reduce the load of footfalls happening at a PHC.

When we went around to see what’s going on, we found a different story. Of the 15 HSCs we visited in a span of 2 weeks recently, we noticed 13 of them to be closed. On speaking to the locals there, we realized this has been the case for a long while now.

HSC at Bhusola Danapur: People in the vicinity did not even know there was an HSC in the area.

HSC at Suitha: Unknown to the locals, this HSC neither has the required stock nor is visited by the locals. All of them prefer to head to the nearest PHC, which is a good 10km from this place.

HSC at Parsa: Totally unused, the locals told us that the ANM (Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife) visits once a month. During the other days, it is used as a makeshift place to store grass, fodder etc.

HSC at Pashi - 1: A very dirty and clearly unused HSC, one of the rooms here is used to store fodder.

HSC at Pashi : A very dirty and clearly unused HSC, one of the rooms here is used to store fodder.

HSC at Pashi

HSC at Chilbili: This three-roomed HSC is closed throughout. Two of these rooms did not have doors; the other was locked. There were men seated outside playing cards. Was visibly very dirty.

HSC at Chilbili

HSC at Visanpur: The HSC runs within the premises of a temple

HSC at Visanpur

Some highlights from our study –

13 out of the 15 HSCs were closed.
Of the ones open, there were expired tablets kept in stock.
One of the HSCs runs in the premises of a temple.

What’s worse was the people around did not know what an HSC was or why it is of use to them.

We are shifting gears into a concerted drive to get this awareness reach the last mile as well as sensitize a wider audience regarding this.

Do share this to as many you know with the hope that those who err and those responsible for its upkeep also catch sight of it. We are also working on some innovative interventions to aid the existing system in doing better – drop a line to know more!

At Seva Setu, we are actively pushing for these cases to be highlighted by the media as well. We have a detailed report on these findings. Do drop in a line if you’d like to read it or if you have ideas to share on how to increase readership.

We have now started off with a drive to evaluate the PHCs in some of these districts and highlight discrepancies we find there. Full steam ahead!

21 Jun

An Audit of the Social Audit Day Program by the Ministry of ICDS (Phulwari Sharif)

A social audit of the Anganwadi centers in every village is supposed to be an audit by the members of the society in seeing whether the Anganwadi is able to serve the people right. This is an event which takes place every six months and is widely publicized by the organizing ministry, the Integrated Child Development Services.

Designated office-bearers along with the citizens get an opportunity to walk up to the Anganwadis and audit the performance of the center over the last couple of months. A very powerful tool by the letter of the law.

However, when at Seva Setu audited the audit today, we found a different story. No audit really happens! The letter of the law is all the remains. Most Anganwadi centers were busy doing paper work related to Aadhar and ration cards. Further, we found out some centers which were not functioning at all!

Expected vs. reality – Social audit program by the department of ICDS where the society is supposed to walk up to Anganwadis and ask how the last 6 months have been. Of the ten we visited randomly today, none had the audit going on!

Further, some Anganwadi centers were dysfunctional!

Non-functioning Anganwadi center number 101 at Kurthol village, Phulwari block in Patna, Bihar.

Minutes of the audits maintained by the Anganwadi centers. This is a boilerplate message, without real information on any actionable items or discussions, being used for the last couple of years.

Attendance logs maintained by the Anganwadi centers. It shows most of the members required to be at the audits to be missing.

Jago Ganatantra, Jago! Spread the word to make those who err sit up and notice.
We also have a detailed report on our findings which we hope to publicize. If you have ideas on how to make this go viral, please drop a comment here. Further, to read our detailed report on this, drop a comment here – happy to share it with you.

18 Oct

Launching Citizen Care 2.0 and Kids Care 2.0

Our Aam Sabha on 20th September launched Citizen Care 2.0 and Kids Care 2.0. The session was a very engaging one, marked by the participation of most of the people present. 🙂

While we have introduced more govt. schemes under the second version of our programme, the key improvement that we have made in this version is on the front of follow-up and ‘closing the loop’. Some beneficiaries of our Citizen Care and Kids Care programme also joined and shared with the audience, their experience of associating with us.

We also took this opportunity to reward the best performers of a drawing/sketching competition that we had organized on 15th August at one of our Sewing Training Centres.

02 Oct

Following Gandhiji’s Talisman

Almost every textbook in our school used to start with the following talisman by Gandhiji. Some of the books, in fact, had it in the beginning of every chapter. As we grew up and as we turned pages of the new chapters of life, our encounter with the Talisman gradually became less frequent, ultimately reducing at best to an annual event on Gandhi Jayanti. However, we at Seva Setu are determined with all humility to reverse this trend and make sure that not only this encounter becomes more frequent but eventually we become one with this principle.

“I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man/woman whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him/her. Will he/she gain anything by it? Will it restore him/her to a control over his/her life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.”

Keeping this ideal in view, we have launched an initiative on the ground whereby our field karykartas identify and interact with the most deprived familiy/families in any village of the area allotted to them. The identification and assessment has both objective and subjective elements in it. It is followed by an internal discussion in our team where we build a map of actions with timelines which, we believe, will help the identified families “get more control over their life and destiny”. This is followed by on ground execution of the map.

Under this initiative, the first family that we are closely working with, is of Suratpur village, Raja Pakar block, Vaishali District, Bihar. The identified family has only two people – Sri Heegan Ram, who is around 70 years old, and his wife, almost 60 years old. With no land or any other immovable property or assets, the family’s sole means of livelihood (till we met them) was the meager, irregular income that comes from working as labourers on other’s land. With age, this too has become very difficult for them. One of the sons of the family recently died under mysterious circumstances in Chandigarh. The other son seems to have deserted his family. After we started working with the family, the lady has become a part of our Sattu production team and now makes Rs. 1,000 per month through it. The family, with our handholding, has bought two goats now and we are working together with them to build a profitable and sustainable goat rearing business for their family.

With hope and resolve, we march on! Together 🙂

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