Project Roshni, started in 2015 by SHED, a Mumbai-based NGO in collaboration with Roche Diagnostics, is providing healthcare and livelihood support to underprivileged women in the Palghar district of Maharashtra.
Bhavika Bhopi, a 35-year-old woman living in Palghar district of Maharashtra, had been experiencing persistent fatigue and weight gain for two to three years. Despite seeking help from local doctors, her condition did not improve.
In 2015, she started her treatment under Project Roshni, a CSR initiative of Roche Diagnostics, that provides women with equitable access to healthcare and livelihood support. As part of the project, Bhopi underwent a haemoglobin level test that appeared dangerously low. Further checkups and tests led to the diagnosis of a thyroid disorder, after which she received the appropriate treatment. By 2019, Bhopi completely recovered from low haemoglobin levels and thyroid disorder.
“Mein bahut pareshan thi, baar baar doctor par jaati thi lekin kuch ho hi nhi raha tha. Jab mujhe pata chala mujhe thyroid hai tab yeh doctors ne mujhe sahi dawai di (I was very disturbed about my health. Every time I went to the local doctor he gave me medicines which were not working. Later these NGO doctors did the correct diagnosis and provided me with the right treatment),” she says.
Project Roshni was started in 2015 by SHED, a Mumbai-based NGO, in collaboration with Roche Diagnostics. Since then, it has been working with women in two villages in Palghar to manage low haemoglobin levels. The project also provides training in skills such as beautician courses, tailoring, and modern agriculture practices, while helping villagers grow kitchen gardens, resulting in improved livelihoods and sustainable income sources.
“Through this project, we wanted to provide these underprivileged women with equitable access to healthcare,” Manjira Sharma, Head of Communication and CSR, Roche Diagnostics and Neighbouring Markets.
The first steps
SHED has been working in various villages of Palghar for the last 35 years for promoting sanitation by building 45,000 low toilets, providing non-formal education to dropouts, and conducting watershed management and HIV awareness programmes, among other initiatives.
On conducting various surveys in the region, it realised that a large percentage of women suffered from malnutrition and low levels of haemoglobin, leading to poor immunity, menstrual problems, thyroid issues, and more.
“This called for an urgent need to rehabilitate these tribal women. Of the 200 villages in the district, we chose to focus on Shilta and Sonave due to their lack of access to transportation to the nearby towns,” Sharma says.
Under the project, medical camps are set up for HB testing three times a year, and the women with low haemoglobin levels are provided with the medications.
The team has four doctors on board who visit women in all the clusters in the villages around four times a week to interact with them and to ensure they are not facing any other health issues.
Health checkup camps in Palghar district “We have an on-ground team of ten people who visit these fourteen clusters every day to ensure these women are taking their medicines on time and to stay in touch with them. In case the medicines do not seem to work or if any woman is facing any other health issue such as thyroid, diabetes, and others, we take them for further testing and provide them with the concerned treatment,” says Snehal Salunkhe, the Executive Programme Officer of SHED, says.
After a thorough examination of the beneficiaries for more than 18 months, those with good haemoglobin levels are designated as Roshni ambassadors, who, along with local ASHA workers, spread awareness about the importance of HB testing among other women.
From 2022-23, 280 of the 480 active women participants were promoted as ambassadors, while 60 new beneficiaries were added to the women’s health programme.
Salunke remembers the struggles they had to face to convince women to get tested and take medications. “They used to think that we are stealing their blood and we will sell it in the market,” she says. However, Salunke and her team used to go door-to-door to talk to these women and their families to educate and convince them to get tested and consume the required medicines. They also conducted workshops to make them understand the importance of HB testing and the health hazards associated with low haemoglobin levels.
“It was tough in the beginning, but now women themselves come to our camp to get tested,” she says.
Read more at: https://yourstory.com/herstory/2023/04/project-roshni-providing-healthcare-livelihood-women-maharashtra
