Location: Jaipur

Situation:

Despite exceptional growth, India still has major social inequalities and the current economic development has not managed to reduce these. Frequent terrorist attacks fan the religious and cultural tensions which threaten the unity of the country. At the request of the local organisation JKSMS, Doctors of the World (DOW) Midi-Pyrenees regional delegation has been developing a mother and child healthcare project since 2007, supporting primary healthcare in ten shantytowns in Jaipur.

Activities:

The programme's activities include data collection, and that enables us to adapt the activities to the context. DOW UK has also implemented a community mother and child health project, working with a network of public and private health services and in collaboration with traditional birth attendants. Other activities include finalising a Birth Preparedness Plan for pregnant women and newborn babies and improving women's access to family planning and treatment for pelvic conditions and sexually transmitted infections. The team is working on expanding the programme into all the shantytowns by training 'resource groups' and community leaders and by creating information, education and communication (IEC) tools based on Indian culture. in 2009 the percentage of medically-supervised births rose from 23% to 45% in the target populations.

Outlook:
DOW UK will continue the work already started and will strengthen its links with specialist organisations working in micro-finance in shantytowns in order to consolidate the network of NGOs working in these areas. To ensure long term sustainability, the work will take into account the level of human mobility in the shantytowns. The focus for 2010 is on the training of link workers from within these communities, who will replace, over time, the social workers. DOW will also concentrate on developing advocacy to raise awareness in Jaipur of the need to improve care for pregnant women and children in the shantytowns.