Ain't no stopping us now
Today was our meet and greet sessions in home town Alangayam which involved visiting the Primary Healthcare Centre, Block Development Office, all girls school and separate all boys school. Our needs assessment at the PHC has shown that vector-bourne is disease is an important topic to raise awareness for (mosquito protection) but the main health concerns here are sanitation and nutrition with linked rise in type 2 diabetes cases. Sanitation is a recurrent issue as many people and schools do not have toilets so people will just go, away from main roads, and then return to their routines. However, even places that do have toilets need awareness raising regarding basic good hygiene practises such as washing hands and brushing teeth. Type 2 diabetes is becoming more prevalent across India, there are lots of high sugar content sweets/snacks/drinks that can be purchased cheaply that are becoming part of peoples regular diet. As a result, people are developing a higher tolerance for sugar which in later life can cause complications such as coma's, limb amputation and cataracts/blindness. There is also an issue of poor nutrition with children skipping meals and not eating fruit/vegetables regularly so becoming lethargic/anaemic.
Our needs assessments also covered livelihoods which for our target demographic involves promoting higher education, C.V. writing workshops and careers advice. Most of the boys aim to go on to higher education and obtain single or multiple degrees/masters in medicine, education, commerce and engineering etc. Furthermore, many of the students from the specific school we went to have PhD's and their names written on boards in the headmasters office. There are also frequent sport competitions such as volleyball and badminton in the boys school. In contrast, while most of the girls in the school aim to go onto higher education, the highest they will go is college as university is too far and they don't wish to leave their parents. Some of the girls won't make it to college and follow their parents wishes and get married. While gender equality is improving there is a long way to go.
While it was nice to see a strong India school I am under no illusions that our livelihood sessions will need to reach a large age group and both genders as children in poorer areas will often drop out to work to help their family.
Girls School
No one in Alangayam lets a little rainfall stop them!
Going to Mallamapuram for the weekend to meet up with all the other teams. Leaving tomorrow afternoon as it is an 8 hour bus journey. Next update on Sunday or Monday :).
Our needs assessments also covered livelihoods which for our target demographic involves promoting higher education, C.V. writing workshops and careers advice. Most of the boys aim to go on to higher education and obtain single or multiple degrees/masters in medicine, education, commerce and engineering etc. Furthermore, many of the students from the specific school we went to have PhD's and their names written on boards in the headmasters office. There are also frequent sport competitions such as volleyball and badminton in the boys school. In contrast, while most of the girls in the school aim to go onto higher education, the highest they will go is college as university is too far and they don't wish to leave their parents. Some of the girls won't make it to college and follow their parents wishes and get married. While gender equality is improving there is a long way to go.
While it was nice to see a strong India school I am under no illusions that our livelihood sessions will need to reach a large age group and both genders as children in poorer areas will often drop out to work to help their family.
Girls School
Boys School
Midday rainfall so waded to boys school
No one in Alangayam lets a little rainfall stop them!
Going to Mallamapuram for the weekend to meet up with all the other teams. Leaving tomorrow afternoon as it is an 8 hour bus journey. Next update on Sunday or Monday :).
Isn't the difference between the Girls verses the Boys education vastly different.... those floods look something else !!!
ReplyDeleteJust seeing if mum can comment now.... on her netbook
ReplyDeleteLol, not sure how to reply to mums comment :P. Yeah its insane the difference, its because it is still very man is the breadwinner so education for women is inevitably pointless which is wrong. Monsoon season incoming.
ReplyDelete