Dr Navneet Kour
Women and children are the oars of the boat which we call society- without them societal growth, change, progress and even sustenance would evade us. In our country, and our state especially, women are being reduced to secondary citizens and children to mere assets and property, and even liabilities in the underprivileged areas. To empower the women and child population of our Union Territory J&K , and eventually the country, we need to begin with their wellbeing and thus focus on their future in our healthcare structures and systems.
The United Nations states that “Poor health constitutes suffering and deprivation of the most fundamental kind.” With the increasing urgency in healthcare requirements for women and children especially in rural and underprivileged areas, there is a need to address the medical and healthcare opportunities for them.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as the “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” With this definition as our guiding light and in the unique context of our state, the approach to improve the status of women and children through healthcare needs to be multi-pronged.
The first step for bringing about any progress needs to be through an increase in knowledge and awareness, opening up mindsets and perspectives to make the society malleable and prepared for the oncoming changes. Similarly, in the context of women and children empowerment in healthcare, there needs to be added focus on educating the masses about their healthcare rights. Programs will consist of issues and topics of female and children’s health like menstrual health, sanitation, cleanliness, sexual health and harassment (for example: teaching young children especially girls the different between ‘good touch’ and ‘bad touch’). A multi-stakeholder awareness programs and workshops should be organised for the family for educating them on child growth stages and accompanying requirements of the child and the changing needs of the family. Another important aspect of healthcare empowerment for women and children of our state where they are forced to be dependent on the males in their family, it becomes the role of the Government, NGOs, and social workers to conduct lifestyle and health skills workshop for women and children. These skill-building workshops will allow them to be self-sustainable and independent in their own health affairs. This approach will inculcate in the females, especially girls, with grater hygiene awareness thus allowing them greater care for their own bodies.
An important part of the Indian societal living is the essence of the family and familial living as the centre of existence, life, and functioning. Women and children are deeply embedded in the family and the private sphere of societal living more than men are and are often kept away from the public sphere. Thus, for increasing health restoration and empowerment of women and children, making them independent and making them empowered in terms of health within their own families becomes imperative. This will involve community engagements at the familial and not just the individual level. As social and Human Rights Activist and workers in the field, this will involve seminars and programs on multiple family health issues especially contraceptive health awareness and making contraception accessible and available to women- giving them power and autonomy over their own body. Family health and nutrition will also become an important cog in the machine promoting healthy family habits of hygiene, cleanliness, cooking and nutrition. For this, training on developing and maintaining kitchen gardens for each family or for a group of families will be an innovative way of giving them the power of nutrition in their own hands and further building a sustainable system of nutrition for them. It is often observed that in underprivileged communities and in families below poverty line, the constructs of family planning are missing because of age-old beliefs in children as financial shareholders and economical helping hands but this idea leads to greater burden on the financial and health resources of the family. To counter this dilemma, informed, intensive, and regular family planning workshops and interventions should be conducted in the target populations. Through these initiatives, women will have greater confidence and independence over their own health behaviours, which will trickle down to the children thus restoring their health rights with added support from family support systems encouraged by teams of social workers.
An immediate point of concern is the availability of and accessibility to clean, drinking water, as well as clean water for females during times of menstruation. For this, we as Social Activists ,social justice workers need to ensure that potable water is made available to families from the underprivileged sects. Initiatives like chlorine tablets installation, awareness building for clean water through boiling, etc can make this a reality with even minimal financial investments.
With the changing times today, greater emphasis is being put on people’s mental health and well-being. In a Union Territory like J&K which has its many ups and downs, an added importance is seen for mental health . The children and women of our society, especially those of the lower socioeconomic strata, face a lot of these challenges in the form of domestic violence, sexual slavery, migration, militancy threats etc. With this in mind, social activists , social workers and counsellors need to come together for mental health training and mental health workshops, providing counselling and therapeutic sessions for individuals from distressed situations and backgrounds. To make them self-sustaining and independent in matters of their mental health, initiatives like Social Activist worker led self-help groups in these cases will give them independent skills as well as social support networks.
We need to build a vast system and intricate network of social workers, trained professionals and volunteers to ensure that social justice and healthcare empowerment reaches individuals, especially women and children, far and wide in our Union Territory . These clusters of volunteers and Social Workers and Activists will be responsible for regular canvassing and awareness building initiatives, ensuring that all target populations are aware of the services and Government aids available to them. Further more, through engaged medical teams and medical profiling, proper streamlined programs can be designed to assess and then alleviate the real time healthcare issues emerging in the target populations. Through such a dynamic community engagement between professionals, social workers, and underprivileged systems, an enduring and functioning system of healthcare efficiency will develop in our state thus restoring and further ensuring children and women’s healthcare rights. In a similar string as this, special institutions and education centres need to be set up for children with special and diverse needs. For this, professionals with proper qualifications and regular training need to be embedded in our state to ensure that these children are not left behind, further strengthening children’s rights at the crossroads of diverse needs and healthcare.
In a state with a unique existence like ours, Government accountability and social service involvement needs to become one to ensure social justice for all. Through the aforementioned volunteer worker network, Government schemes and social service initiatives can reach the interiors of our state and eventually the country. A multi-stakeholder approach like this will ensure proper applications and conduction of Government schemes to reach the grassroots of our society. We as social activists & field workers then have the onus to help people in need meet the Government aid meant for them. Initiatives like the National Rural Health Mission and the Kendriya Bal Suraksha Yojana and many other Government Schemes need to have a system of workers to take the schemes to the people. Announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ayushman Bharat scheme offers free health insurance of upto 5 lakh for people from underprivileged sectors of the society. Similar to this, the Swadhar Greh scheme envisions a supportive institutional framework for women victims of difficult circumstances providing them with shelter, food, clothing, and health as well as economic and social security are assured for such women. Unfortunately, such schemes and health opportunities evade the target and through our initiatives these can be made to reach the people. Organisations like the Care, Support NGO, Directorate of Health Services , NHM National Health Mission , Indian Red Cross Society, community health workers (Anganwadi workers), local NGOs, District Hospitals etc become the vehicles of change in this context taking forward the schemes and initiatives of the Jammu & Kashmir UT and Central Government and allowing them to reach those in need.
Further, initiatives like free and/or subsidised medical aid, free immunisation, regular blood tests and cancer screenings for women, fundraising with community engagement for healthcare projects, provision of free sanitary kits, and funding proper public restrooms for communities in underprivileged areas. Such initiatives will bring an increase in healthcare provisions and thus provide a direct inroad for individuals for health and hygiene endurance and empowerment.
In this tone, to wind up these ideas, we need to understand that through multiple initiatives through a network of workers can empower children and women in our state for their healthcare
(The author is Founder Chairperson of NGO SUPPORT & Creative Self Employed Entrepreneurs Cooperative ltd)
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