Programs in Hygiene and Healthcare
Programs in Hygiene and Healthcare:
Our partner organizations in Kolkata are engaged in promoting healthy behaviour and hygiene practices through community mobilization and capacity building in the health and sanitation sectors. These organizations are responsible for building modern sanitation facilities even in the murkiest of slums of Kolkata, thereby helping the poor achieve optimum sanitation levels. Their construction programs aim at improving the water and sanitation coverage in parts of Kolkata. However all the efforts of these programs will be thwarted, if people are not made aware of proper usage and maintenance of latrines and certain hygienic practices. In this way the affected group can more efficiently fight diseases like diarrhoea and E. coli, which mainly stem out of unhygienic living and sanitary conditions.
As a volunteer, you will be required to:
- Participate in the outreach programs of this organization extending primary health services to the needy
- Create groups from the community itself and build the capacity of the participants.
- Participate in awareness campaigns concentrating on the safe disposal of waste water to ward off diseases like diarrhoea which is a common occurrence in the slums of India
- Take initiatives in order to change the behavior patterns of people, living in poverty and extremely difficult circumstances and educate them on safe hygiene practices
- Mobilize community support.
Programs for people, living with HIV/AIDS and STDs
In India, HIV/AIDS is an area of high concern that can be mainly attributed to unsafe sex practices, migration, drug abuse through infected syringes, stigmatization and gender discrimination. While the government’s response has scaled up considerably major challenges still remain unaddressed in relation to the efficacy of state-funded programs and the participation of other social sectors in reducing the stigma attached to these diseases in India. However, experts off late are thinking beyond traditional campaigns that are solely concentrated on promoting safe sex practices among high-risk groups and sexual networks. Social workers have now shifted their attention to patients who are afflicted by HIV/ STDs and their accessibility to drugs. We can place volunteers on a variety of projects that involve direct interaction with the target groups. Volunteers with backgrounds in medicine, nursing, public health, social work and psychology can help with counselling and health services to patients who are already affected by either of these diseases.
As a volunteer, you will be required to:
- Participate in outreach activities, interacting directly with high-risk communities and sex-workers promoting safer sex practices
- Extend counselling services and emotional support to terminal patients and people affected by either of these diseases
- Participate in general surveys and collect relevant data
- Teach and spend quality time with orphans afflicted with HIV/AIDS
- Participate in general awareness and sensitizing programs to destigmatize testing and treatments for HIV
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