Provides Reproductive and Child Health in the difficult-to-reach tribal areas located in the fringes of Bandipur and Nagarahole National Parks 

Mysore/Mysuru: Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), a development organisation working in the field of health, education, socio-economic empowerment programme and training and research with the experience of over 35 years in a development sector, has announced its partnership with the Ashraya Hastha Trust, a charitable organisation funded by Infosys Co-Founder K. Dinesh and his family.

The partnership is into its second year and boosting up the present programme of SVYM with a goal to support the Reproductive & Child Health (RCH) programme in all the tribal hamlets of H.D. Kote, Saragur, Gundlupet, Nanjangud, Hunsur and Virajpet taluks across Mysuru, Kodagu and Chamarajanagar districts in the State. This partnership is reaching 275 tribal hamlets and a population of 51,000 which includes the particularly vulnerable tribal group of Jenu Kurubas.

RCH is a technology-enabled programme which works on the concept of providing the entire journey of antenatal and postnatal care including the most important event of labour. The programme identifies eligible couples and monitors them from the journey of conception to labour and completion of nine months of child including the primary immunisation coverage. 

The main focus of the programme includes early identification of the high risk pregnancy, facilitate them with the social entitlements and additional support by offering medical care. The programme is expected to reach minimum 1,200 high risk pregnant mothers from the vulnerable tribal community. 

One of the key challenges faced by pregnant women in the tribal areas across three districts is the access to institutional deliveries — the reasons for this are multi-factorial including:

Reluctance toward opting for institutional deliveries; lack of awareness of both the need as well as the importance/ benefits of Institutional deliveries; availability of quality institutions that can offer access to institutional deliveries; logistical issues in times of emergencies and during deliveries; poor quality roads; ganger from wild animals; availability of vehicles/ ambulances; poor network connectivity; poverty — financial as well as ‘voice’ poverty.

Jayamma from Jenu Kuruba tribe in Dammanakatte, a remote tribal haadi, was brought to VMH as an emergency high risk pregnancy during lockdown in an extremely difficult condition. She gave birth to a baby with low birth weight 1.920 kilograms in need of neonatal care for some days at the hospital. This is one of the many stories RCH team witnessed during lockdown.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic-associated lockdown and with Section 144 having been imposed even across the tribal areas, SVYM continued its outreach across the tribal hamlets of H.D. Kote in addition to covering parts of Gundlupet, Nanjangud, Hunsur and Virajpet taluks. 

 “SVYM’s aim is to enable and ensure that all pregnant tribal women avail hospital care and opt for institutional deliveries and have the opportunity to access all the facilities in order to reduce mother and child mortality,” says Dr. Dennis Chauhan, Head of Community Based Programmes, SVYM

Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) is a development organisation, engaged in building a new civil society in India through its grassroots to policy level action in the sectors of Health, Education and Community Development. 

Ashraya Hastha Trust has been active during the COVID-19 pandemic in providing assistance and service including collaborating with the Indian Army in “Operation Namaste” contributing 25 ventilators primarily to enable hospitals in augmenting their capacity to treat patients of COVID-19. The Trust has also partnered with several other philanthropic institutions, Trusts and NGOs to further help during these difficult times.