Community Care (CC) has been running community based development projects (CBDP) for the last two years in several poorer communities in the
Some of the main projects run by CC are: Family Planning, use of oral rehydration salts (ORS), hygiene and sanitation, safe sex and football club.
This young man is only 26 years old and his wife is 23 years old only. However, they have three daughters and one son. CC volunteers have been trying to find some families or organizations who could adopt at least one of their daughters. He is happy to get a cap from CC which he is wearing in this picture.
After knowing him for a long time it was possible to give him condoms to stop his family to have more children. However this option didn’t work so well for this couple so CC provided more information about other options for birth control. Finally the husband decided to be permanently sterilized and they are happy that they do not fear having a family that is growing even larger than they can afford.
One of our doctors, a gynaecologist, is examining a woman in one of the maternal check up programs. As many as 200 women came up for the medical check up because it was free. When a mother is sick there is very little chance that she can go to the hospital because she is always busy even when she is ill. Who will cook for the family, who will clean the house and who will look after the house while everyone else is away at work or school? Because of this and due to a lack of money to pay the doctor’s high fees, mothers will seldom go for a check up unless the illness is very serious. Therefore CC organizes medical check up camps in the poorer communities once a year.
CC staff are participating with the other organisations and gathered together at the centre of the market to publicise AIDS day.
A teacher from this community was a very good example in the community for late marriage. He married a woman who was nearly 29 years. Otherwise most girls in the community are already married, pregnant or have become mothers by the time they are 16 or 17 years old. When this lady was offered a box of condoms she pushed them away with her foot. Obviously she became pregnant soon after marriage.
CC gave her iron vitamin pills (ferrous sulphate tablets with folic acids) regularly during her pregnancy. Due to the vitamin pills she delivered a very healthy baby. CC has provided her with information on using condoms to avoid pregnancy
Personal hygiene is one of CC's main projects for the beneficiaries. Soap cakes were distributed to the children who had bathed on the day of the visits of the CC volunteers as prizes and incentives. The boys or girls who got the soap were advised to share their soap with their friends and also to encourage others to take baths. A young man is applying medicines (scabo lotion) to younger boys who were infected with scabies.
CC is providing Vitamin A to the children in the community. An NGO called GONESHA is helping the children under five years old to join the Child Day Care Centre in our project area. Vitamin A is very good for children suffering from malnutrition and night blindness.
These ladies were using Depo (Depo-provera) injections for preventing pregnancy. They stopped using the Depo when their husbands were away. The husbands arrived home unexpectedly. So both of them are pregnant. CC gives a lot of emphasis to using contraceptives even when the male spouses are away from home. You never know when they will arrive home suddenly and bang! The ladies are pregnant!!
A CC volunteer is giving Depo injection to a mother. One Depo injection works for three months to prevent pregnancy.
A CC volunteer is carrying the twigs and shrubs which made the road near the CC office dirty. The shrubs were excellent places for mosquitoes and other insects to breed in the shrubs during summer and monsoon season. The dried shrubs are used to heat water for bathing and boil the water for drinking.
As many as 100 students from the Nursing Campus joined during some of the sanitation campaigns to help CC members and the residents near the CC office to clean the roads and the football ground.
During one of the training sessions the a local girl helps to wear the drawing of male productive organs with the CC volunteer who is wearing a picture of female productive organs. The local girl was only 16 years only but she was already pregnant.
As contraceptives used for birth control and safe sex are associated with sex it is quite difficult in
In order to win the confidence of the community members CC distributes them with items such as clothes, vitamins and medicines for simple diseases such as scabies, cough, headache, high temperature.
After winning their confidence CC goes on to explain the family planning and STD/AIDS prevention advantages of using condoms. The target groups of beneficiaries that CC reaches out to include married women, unmarried women and sex workers.
Members of the CC participating in the Save the Mother Earth Day rally.
This is a simple latrine build by one of the community members with the guidance of CC volunteers. CC is planning to build more latrines in the community to improve the sanitation status of the community.
Kamala Giri is only 23 years old. Her husband can not work currently because he was in an accident in which the tractor full of big loads of straw overrun over him. She is the only person who does her best to find daily wage labour to feed the family. CC
has been able to convince her to use oral pills (Lo-feminal) to prevent her from pregnancy.
CC has organized a football team of young boys. Some of the boys did not go to school. They spent their whole day playing pool. CC invited them to join the practice matches every evening. Gradually only those boys were allowed to participate in the practice matches who ceased to hang around the pool or who did not indulge in cigarettes mixed with grass.
It was wonderful for the team and the community that in one of the tournaments our team was the winner!
We hope that this report helps you to know more about our project and the progress we are making. We welcome you to visit us in
Best wishes to you,
Devi Gurung
Chief Adviser