Recent Reports
To view all reports, first select an initiative to the right.
November 01, 2017 - India
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August 01, 2017 - India
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May 23, 2017 - India
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February 01, 2017 - India
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January 15, 2017 - India
December 30, 2016 - India
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October 18, 2016 - India
The project’s goal is to reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village-level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5, and will be more cost-effective in the long run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities.
Since our Malnutrition Eradication Initiative began in 2010, this program directly impacted:
The tribal rural population of 881,741…Back to: India
July 20, 2016 - India
July 20, 2016 - India
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June 30, 2016 - India
January 15, 2014 - India
Project Goal:
To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5 and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities.
This project empowers communities through health literacy and connects rural communities with the government health and nutrition services…
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September 04, 2013 - India
Project Goal:
To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5 and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities.
Photo: RMF's Malnutrition Education Booth at the International Women’s Day Mela
This project empowers…
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August 29, 2013 - India
The Real Medicine Foundation is pleased to announce that it is now in partnership with the World Bank’s Development Marketplace for our programs in India. The Development Marketplace (DM) is a competitive grant program that identifies and funds innovative, early stage development projects that are scalable and/or replicable, while also having high potential for development impact.
World Bank Press Release of Award Announcement
Photo: Michael Matheke-Fisher, RMF Country Director, India (left), Pratik Phadkule, RMF Program Manager (second from (left) recieve award from, Drew von Glahn, Team Leader of Development Marketplace (third…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Project Background:
RMF's Childhood Malnutrition Eradication Initiative has the largest field presence of any NGO working in malnutrition in the region, a result of strong partnerships with government, NGOs, business, and most importantly, local communities. Into its second year, our program continues stronger than ever. Our team of 75 Community Nutrition Educators (CNEs) is covering enormous ground every week across 5 districts and 600 villages in Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh carries India's highest malnutrition burden, with 60% of its children under 5 malnourished – approximately 6 million children whose futures are at risk. Our strategy continues to…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Over the course of the past three years, RMF’s CNEs have helped thousands of children recover from malnutrition. Some times these cases are easy to handle: the CNE diagnoses a child, refers them to treatment, and the family agrees to do everything they can to help their child. Often, however, there are too many challenges for these families to overcome to give their child the treatment they require.
Right now in Madhya Pradesh, the only treatment option for children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) is a 14 to 21 day stay in a Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre (NRC),…
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October 14, 2014 - India
Most organizations in the developing world still rely on paper for record keeping, giving rise to many problems in aggregation, storage, transmission and analysis of data. Errors and time delays associated with paper data are particularly problematic in the domain of healthcare. We present a case study of CommCare, a low-cost mobile phone data collection solution deployed to enhance the paper-based record management system of a non-profit organization working in prevention of child malnutrition in rural central India. Through a three-month unsupervised field trial with ten rural health workers we report data management gains in terms of data quality,…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Project Background:
RMF's Childhood Malnutrition Eradication Initiative has the largest field presence of any NGO working in malnutrition in the region, a result of strong partnerships with government, NGOs, business, and most importantly, local communities. Into its second year, our program continues stronger than ever. Our team of 75 Community Nutrition Educators (CNEs) is covering enormous ground every week across 5 districts and 600 villages in Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh carries India's highest malnutrition burden, with 60% of its children under 5 malnourished – approximately 6 million children whose futures are at risk. Our strategy continues to…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Project Goal
To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5 and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities.
Photo: Two of our Community Nutrition Educators learning to use the RMF/Commcare mobile phone survey…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Sunday, November 20, 2011 was the first time I met Sonu. To me, he was a picture on a PowerPoint presentation, a picture that continues to shock me today. Sonu came into our program 15 months ago while I was in Delhi working on streamlining our administrative procedures and, more importantly, trying to raise more funds to help children like him. Fundraising and administrative work, while just as vital as the field work we engage in, is an ever present necessity shared by our small, but dedicated team.
Photo: Sonu, before he began treatment through…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Click here to watch Phil Ebiner's video documentary about Asha, one of the children treated by our Malnutrition Eradication Program.
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August 29, 2013 - India
Project Goal:
To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5 and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities.
This project will empower communities through health literacy and connect rural communities with…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Project Goal:
To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5 and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities.
This project will empower communities through health literacy and connect rural communities with the government…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Project Goal
To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5 and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities.
Photo: RMF Staff conducting spot checks in the field
This project will empower communities…
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August 29, 2013 - India
By Caitlin McQuilling
RMF Community Nutrition Educator, Samoti, and a child recovering from SAM.
Photo Credits: Ximena Prugue
In March 2009, when I was conducting the initial field visits to develop RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program I visited a village called Shali Dana, in Kalwa block of Khandwa district in Madhya Pradesh. I remember being shocked and overwhelmed by the amount of children with severe acute malnutrition I saw in this village and the complete apathy and absence of government services in this village. We saw dozens of glassy eyed children with thinning…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Introducing a new pilot initiative within RMF’s Eradicate Malnutrition Program: Strengthening Community Management of Childhood Malnutrition through community mobilization, and nutrition and health education of mothers and pregnant women in Barwani, Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh has the highest rate of childhood malnutrition in India, with upwards of 60% of all children under 5 years old underweight. In many tribal communities in the state, this rate may be even higher, with alarmingly high rates of severe and moderate acute malnutrition. These communities often have limited access to government resources meant to prevent and treat malnutrition and…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Introduction
In January 2010, Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) set off on an ambitious mission to begin eradicating malnutrition Southwestern Madhya Pradesh. Facing extremely high rates of malnutrition and a challenging environment in the field, RMF brought on and trained 55 Community Nutrition Educators, a force of local tribal women with the passion and dedication to combat malnutrition in their communities. With the leadership of these local women, RMF’s team went door to door across 500 of the villages worst hit by childhood malnutrition and identified over 76,000 children with severe and moderate acute malnutrition. In just 12…
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August 29, 2013 - India
The Real Medicine India Class of 2011
Announcing the 26 members of the Real Medicine India Class of 2011! On October 30th, 2010 all 25 members of the RMF India team who applied were accepted into the year-long Child Health and Nutrition Course at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The course officially starts on January 1st 2011, with final exams in December of 2011.
This course is mostly a correspondence course, with classroom sessions and presentations quarterly at the IGNOU campus in Jhabua. The course focuses on the basics of early childhood development and…
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January 14, 2014 - India
Year to date Progress Report: January through August 31st, 2010
As we approach the 9th month of our Malnutrition Eradication program, this progress report serves to summarize the incredible achievements of this initiative in such a short time.
This project seeks to empower communities through health literacy and connects rural communities with existing government health and nutrition services locally available, thus reducing the prevalence of malnutrition. We employ 55 tribal women as Community Nutrition Educators, covering 500 villages across 5 of the districts hardest hit by…
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January 14, 2014 - India
Back in January, Phil Ebiner and Vince Patin, juniors at Loyola Marymount College, contacted RMF CEO Dr. Martina Fuchs to explore collaborating with RMF on a volunteer project for the summer. Phil, Vince, and new team members Diego Gonzalez, and Sahar Mansoor, faced challenges to their work for RMF India even before they got on the plane. Phil and Vince had been working very hard on securing a grant for their work and while all indicators pointed to them having a very good chance of receiving the grant in the end, they did not receive the expected cash. Disappointed,…
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January 14, 2014 - India
Real Medicine India is proud to introduce its newest staff member, Jaimie Shaff, as the team’s Program Manager for Health and Nutrition. Jaimie recently completed her Master of Public Administration for 
International Public and Non-Profit Management and Policy Analysis at New York University.
While Jaimie is new to the RMF team, she’s not new to our programs. For the past year Jaimie has been a part of the 4 person “Capstone” team, assigned to help RMF’s “Eradicate Malnutrition” program through NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service’s Capstone program. Jaimie and her colleagues spent two semesters helping…
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August 29, 2013 - India
RMF is proud to announce that the Capstone team from the NYU Robert Wagner School of Public Service has successfully completed their collaboration on the Malnutrition Initiative in Madhya Pradesh. The Capstone team was engaged to assist RMF identify opportunities for eradicating malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh, while providing additional tools and information to assess program effectiveness. The objective of this report is to serve as an evaluative tool for RMF in regards to the “Eradicate Malnutrition” Program, from the perspective of the New York University Capstone team.
In April 2009, the Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) launched the “Eradicate…
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August 29, 2013 - India
After months of negotiating the bureaucratic maze of India; acquiring form after form and signature after signature; tireless hours spent on renovation and beautification by our dedicated staff and volunteers, RMF and its partner, Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society, who operate Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, proudly inaugurated its Nutritional Rehabilitation Center (NRC) in partnership with the state government of Madhya Pradesh. After the requisite ribbon cutting and speech by the district’s Chief Medical Officer, we immediately admitted our first 12 patients, who had been waiting (while being looked after by our staff) for hours to be officially admitted.
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August 29, 2013 - India
As our teams have finished their baseline surveys and are now moving on to the intervention stage of our childhood malnutrition program, we’re excited to already be seeing successes.
A few days ago I went out with one of our community nutrition educators, Priyanka, from Alirajpur, to see how the team is doing with their trainings and individual household counseling sessions.
Priyanka, one of RMF's Community Nutrition Educators, Kashish, and Ranu
Priyanka and I visited Chota Undava village which Priyanka had already visited twice, once during the baseline and once to follow-up with…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Now that the training of our Community Nutrition Educators (CNEs) is complete, Real Medicine Foundation Team India has started our field surveys in 500 villages in Southwest Madhya Pradesh. The CNEs are going door to door to find out about nutrition levels among all children under 5 and ask the thousands of families about livelihoods, access to healthcare and public services, and available food. This is the first time a survey of this size and scope is being conducted in these areas.
Our goal is to gain a better understanding of the level of malnutrition…
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August 29, 2013 - India
The Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) and NYU’s prestigious Capstone program have announced a partnership and three graduate students have arrived in Jhabua, Madyha Pradesh to assist with RMF’s malnutrition program.
An estimated 60 million children under the age of five are estimated to be malnourished India. The state where RMF is concentrating, Madhya Pradesh, has the country’s highest malnutrition burden, with 60% of its children under-five malnourished. Of the six million malnourished children in the state, 1.3 million of them have severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and one million have moderate acute malnutrition (MAM).
Children with MAM are…
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October 08, 2014 - India
August 29, 2013 - India
Malnutrition Eradication Program, Madhya Pradesh, India
RMF's Childhood Malnutrition Treatment and Prevention Initiative boasts the largest field presence of any NGO working in malnutrition in the region, a result of strong partnerships with government, NGOs, business, and most importantly, local communities. Madhya Pradesh carries India's highest malnutrition burden, with 60% of its children under 5 malnourished and approximately 6 million children whose futures are at risk. We decided to attack the problem head on by focusing our efforts on 500 of the worst hit villages across 5 districts. Our strategy is to close the gap between the…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Jhabua, Alirajpur, Khandwa, Khargone June 2009
Malnutrition is one of the most serious and large scale health problems facing the Indian state today:
46% of children under 5 in India are malnourished Over 60% of the children in Madhya Pradesh are malnourished, the country's highest malnutrition rate Out of these 6 million malnourished children in MP, 1.3 million have severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and another 1 million have moderate acute malnutrition (MAM)1 MP's tribal districts are the worst hit in the country because of their cultural, geographical and economic isolation, with up to 100% malnutrition in some villiages…Back to: India
August 29, 2013 - India
Staggering figures, but we have to start somewhere.
RMF will start by working with government, NGO, UN, corporate, and civil society partners in Madhya Pradesh to treat severe and moderate acute malnutrition at community levels and to simultaneously train local communities in malnutrition identification, treatment, and long…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Project Goal:
RMF’s HIV/AIDS program was started more than 5 years ago and is now providing HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, counseling, testing, and treatment services to hundreds of community members per month. We have the most integrated public private partnership (PPP) HIV/AIDS services set-up in the state with a PPP Integrated Testing and Counseling Center, PPP Link Antiretroviral Treatment Center, and a ‘DOTS’ treatment center for tuberculosis (often occurring in HIV+ patients). Our care and support program assists 247 HIV positive individuals with medical, psychosocial, and livelihood generation services. We specifically tailor our prevention and care programs to…
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Back to: HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Program
August 29, 2013 - India
Project Goal:
The HIV/AIDS program was started 5 years ago and is now providing HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, counseling, testing, and treatment services to hundreds of community members per month. We have the most integrated public private partnership (PPP) HIV/AIDS services set-up in the state of Madhya Pradesh with a PPP Integrated Testing and Counseling Center, PPP Link Antiretroviral Treatment Center, and a ‘DOTS’ treatment center for tuberculosis (often occurring in HIV+ patients). Our care and support program assists 247 HIV positive individuals with medical, psychosocial, and livelihood generation services. We specifically tailor our prevention and care programs…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Program Background In 2006, it was estimated that between 2 million and 3.1 million people were living with HIV in India. Once localized predominantly to the cities, evidence suggested that HIV/AIDS was spreading to rural communities. In rural India, HIV finds the perfect environment: Populations with high levels of migration to high risk areas, low levels of knowledge about HIV and STI prevention, and little access to prevention, testing, and treatment services.
The Jhabua district in Western Madhya Pradesh is 91 percent rural, 85 percent tribal, and has some of these lowest development indicators…
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August 29, 2013 - India
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August 29, 2013 - India
RMF India's HIV/AIDS program was started in 2006 and is now providing HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, counseling, testing, and treatment services to hundreds of community members per month. We have developed the most integrated public private partnership (PPP) HIV/AIDS services set-up in the state of Madhya Pradesh with a PPP Integrated Testing and Counseling Center, PPP Link Antiretroviral Treatment Center, and a ‘DOTS’ treatment center for tuberculosis (often occurring in HIV+ patients). Our care and support program currently assists 229 HIV positive individuals with medical, psychosocial, and livelihood generation services. We specifically tailor our prevention and care programs to the…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Far from Jack Kerouac’s spontaneous journeys of self-discovery across the United States, here in Jhabua migration is a fact of life, with an average of 60% of the population migrating seasonally for work. Our calendars revolve around crop cycles, and all holidays and planned family events coincide with the comings and goings of relatives and members of the village.
The locals know the bus and train schedules by heart, and special migrant buses are scheduled to carry the farmers away for work in other parts of the state, or other states in the…
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August 29, 2013 - India
July 2010-September 2010
MOBILIZATION AND CAPACITY BUILDING OF FEMALE SEX WORKERS TO IMPLEMENT COMMUNITY LED TARGETED INTERVENTIONS FOR HIV/STI PREVENTION AND TREATMENT
Districts of Jhabua and Nimach in Madhya Pradesh, India Implemented by: Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society Funded: UNFPA Technical Assistance: Real Medicine Foundation India
Executive Summary
In April 2010, a Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society began a targeted intervention (TI) for female sex workers (FSW) in Jhabua and Nimach Districts of Madhya Pradesh. The focus of the intervention is to increase access to HIV/AIDS and STI Prevention, Care,…
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August 29, 2013 - India
The HIV/AIDS program was started 4 years ago and is now providing HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, counseling, testing, and treatment services to hundreds of community members per month. We have the most integrated public private partnership (PPP) HIV/AIDS services set-up in the state with a PPP Integrated Testing and Counseling Center, PPP Link Antiretroviral Treatment Center, and a ‘DOTS’ treatment center for tuberculosis (often occurring in HIV+ patients). Our care and support program assists 247 HIV positive individuals with medical, psychosocial, and livelihood generation services. We specifically tailor our prevention and care programs to the needs of the tribal communities…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Meghnagar, August 25:
The National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) decided last week to expand the function of so-called Link ART Centers (LAC). RMF set up and has been supporting such a center at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital in a public private partnership, which recently received an award as best Link ART Center out of the 5 attached to the main Indore ART Center and is currently treating 44 patients with free antiretroviral drugs supplied by the Government. On Saturday, August 21st, NACO’s data manager from Indore visited our center and was pleased with the thorough recording and reporting.
…
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August 29, 2013 - India
On May 26th, Real Medicine Foundation and its partner, Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society, inaugurated the first of two “Drop in Centers” for Female Sex Workers (FSWs) under our HIV/AIDS Targeted Intervention with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Located in Meghnagar at the crossroads of the bus-station and next to the train station, the Drop in Centre is a place where womencan come to feel safe, exchange information, receive information and counseling about HIV/AIDS, get referrals for testing, get condoms, come to classes or information sessions about HIV/AIDS,…
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August 29, 2013 - India
It has recently been estimated that there are approximately 2.8 million female sex workers in India, an estimated 36% of whom are under the age of 18. These women are some of the most vulnerable in India to HIV/AIDS and STIs and some of the most underserved, especially in rural areas where their networks are more difficult to target and their access to health services most limited.
Real Medicine Foundation is proud to announce that we’ve tied up with UNFPA and our local partner Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society to provide access to HIV/AIDS, STI,…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Matt Oertli and Tyler Chernin just graduated from Harvard Medical School and are bracing for their next big step, beginning their residencies, moving to new cities, and giving up sleep (which they already sorely miss). While many of their classmates decided to take this time between the pressures of medical school and the hectic life of residency for well-deserved rest and relaxation, Tyler and Matt flew across the world to return to the sweltering heat of Jhabua, a rural town in Madhya Pradesh, India, to help RMF for a month.
Dr. Matt Oertli &…
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September 19, 2013 - India
On Saturday one of our new HIV positive patients, a tribal woman living below the poverty line in Jhabua , came into our office distraught. She had just found out that she was accidentally pregnant, and while she and her husband had been trying for a child for a long time before they found out that they were HIV+, she was contemplating terminating the pregnancy because of her HIV+ status. As she told us her story the sadness in the room was tangible. She spoke in barely an audible whisper and hung her head low, staring at the ground…
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August 13, 2014 - India
By Caitlin McQuilling
Anti Mori
Bareisurei, Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh
Jimmy Nirmal, RMF’s HIV/AIDS Program Manager in Jhabua remembers that when Anti Mori, first arrived at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital in Meghnagar he didn’t think she would make it through the night. Tuberculosis, an opportunistic infection of AIDS was rattling Anti’s frail, malnourished body. As Anti painfully swallowed her first dose of anti-retroviral medication, her three young children looked on hopelessly. No one in the room that night thought Anti would be a success story.
Fast-forward 18 months later. Anti is proudly showing me the…
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August 13, 2014 - India
by Caitlin McQuilling
“We have a long life, but it has to be a disciplined life, where we take care of ourselves and those around us” Rajpal, President, Jhabua District Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, at the Inauguration of RMF’s Integrated Counseling and Testing Center.
Meet Rajpal, an individual who started as a patient, became a colleague, and who is now a great friend helping friends.
In February of 2008 Dr. Fabian Toegel, RMF’s Honorary Country Director, visited the Mother Theresa Home for the Dying and Destitute in Jhabua, where the Sisters of Charity…
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August 29, 2013 - India
Meghnagar, Jhabua
Sugna and her 4 children in front of RMF’s Integrated Counseling and Testing Center (ICTC) at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital in Meghnagar, Madhya Pradesh
Life for the rural populations in Jhabua living on less than a dollar a day is incredibly difficult. Drought, corruption, money lenders, broken government promises, migration, loss, sickness are all too common facets of daily life for rural India. A HIV positive diagnosis only compounds these problems with social stigmas and the burden of life-long treatment and hospital visits. In light of these sometimes seemingly insurmountable…
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August 29, 2013 - India
HIV/AIDS in Jhabua and Alirajpur, Madhya Pradesh
The HIV/AIDS program was started 4 years ago and is now providing HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, counseling, testing, and treatment services to hundreds of community members per month. We have the most integrated public private partnership (PPP) HIV/AIDS services set-up in the state with a PPP Integrated Testing and Counseling Center, PPP Link Antiretroviral Treatment Center, and a ‘DOTS’ treatment center for tuberculosis (often occurring in HIV+ patients). Our care and support program assists 217 HIV positive individuals with medical, psychosocial, and livelihood generation services. We specifically tailor our program to the…
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Back to: HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Program
August 29, 2013 - India
HIV Program
The year 2009 started for our RMF project in Central India with the arrival of two 4th year Harvard Medical Students, which marked the second time that the Harvard Office of Enrichment Programs supported this exchange. Similar to the summer of 2008, the students helped caring for the increasing number of patients living with HIV which had been identified through RMF’s prevention and care program in Jhabua district. Out of close to 1700 clients who had undergone voluntary confidential counseling and testing since the inception of the program, over 140 patients had been found to…
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August 29, 2013 - India
I returned at 4 AM this morning from Jhabua, and after establishing the Jhabua District-level Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS and a Link ART Center under the National AIDS Control Program. The next two steps, which may happen this month are establishing:
A Community Care Center in Jhabua that would serve 15 patients living with HIV/AIDS at a time An Integrated Counseling and Testing Center at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, which is a fully Government funded set-up, providing prevention of parent-to-child transmission, STI management and voluntary counseling and testingThis is entirely due to our efforts and I'll…
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August 29, 2013 - India
August 2006 – December 2007
Over the 17-months span of the program in this remote tribal district of Madhya Pradesh, almost 1,000 patients took an HIV test thanks to the program and an additional 750 sought counseling by program staff. Out of 30 detected HIV positive cases, six succumbed to the disease, half of them children. Seven patients are alive and on free Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) from Government Hospitals, 3 of them children, while another three children do not yet require ART. All children are orphans and live with extended family, receiving psychosocial, transportation, medical and nutrition…
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August 29, 2013 - India
This program is run by the Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society based at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, a 100-bed tertiary care facility with three ORs and a blood bank. In four towns of Jhabua district counselors run Voluntary Confidential Counseling and Testing Centers (VCCTCs) from where they refer individuals. The program creates HIV awareness in schools and villages with the help of counsellors and 500 self-help groups, ie. more than 6,000 village women.
Background
India is sometimes projected to have as many as 25 million HIV/AIDS cases by the year 2010, outnumbering all other countries.1 More than…
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HIV Prevention and Care Program Presentation. Individual slides below.
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October 29, 2014 - India
Background 
India has about 5.7 million HIV/AIDS cases, outnumbering all other countries. This number is sometimes projected to reach 25 million by the year 2010. The epidemic is now reaching the rural communities and the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) is only gradually upgrading its Voluntary Counseling and Testing program. The district Jhabua in the western part of the central Indian state Madhya Pradesh has 85 % tribal population and presents with among the lowest literacy rates of the country. More than half of its 1.2 million tribal inhabitants live as marginal farmers below the poverty line…
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August 29, 2013 - India
The diocese of Indore founded the Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society in 1989 in response to the poor health situation in the District of Jhabua, especially to help the poor and marginal tribal community.
The society is running a 100 bedded General Hospital at Meghnagar, known as the Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, which provides curative services to the poor tribal people of the area. It is the only private hospital in the district having good infrastructures and facilities. But due to the lack of modern equipment we are often unable to provide good service and have to refer cases…
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September 04, 2013 - India
Photo: First workshop in progress
Talking about periods of the human life span, what period do you think is the most difficult? Childhood? ‘Old Age’? Every period of human development comes with its own unique set of challenges and it is very difficult to classify which is the most challenging, but for our work in India, in the last month we decided to focus on adolescence, particularly in girls from our communities, because of the relationship between the challenges faced early in life compounding those faced later.
Not clear? Let me explain it…
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Back to: Adolescent Girl Outreach Program
January 15, 2014 - India
Chelsea Hedquist, the Senior Communications Officer at mHealth Alliance, just visited our Malnutrition mHealth Program in Barwani on her tour of India and wrote the following article about the tremendous positive impact that mobile technology can have on health outcomes. Link to article here or read below.
Thanks Chelsea!
November 21, 2013 mHealth in Action: CommCare to Support Community Nutrition
By Chelsea Hedquist, Senior Communications Officer, mHealth Alliance
The second stop of my 10-day, 6-city journey across India took me to a village called Barwani, approximately three hours southwest of Indore in the…
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Back to: mHealth: Malnutrition Eradication
October 15, 2014 - India
Most organizations in the developing world still rely on paper for record keeping, giving rise to many problems in aggregation, storage, transmission and analysis of data. Errors and time delays associated with paper data are particularly problematic in the domain of healthcare. We present a case study of CommCare, a low-cost mobile phone data collection solution deployed to enhance the paper-based record management system of a non-profit organization working in prevention of child malnutrition in rural central India. Through a three-month unsupervised field trial with ten rural health workers we report data management gains in terms of data quality,…
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Back to: mHealth: Malnutrition Eradication
August 29, 2013 - India
CommCare by Dimagi
After successfully training and rolling out CommCare with all of RMF’s CNEs, RMF management was able to more actively follow up with children in need of our support. Previously, our response relied on phone call alerts from CNEs to their managers, which were then relayed to the program managers for assistance. However, with the real-time data available on CommCare, RMF management is now able to identify serious cases of malnutrition, the children’snames, and villagesremotely, and then actively follow up with the respective CNE immediately. In addition to the regular reports received by ourCNEs, this…
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August 29, 2013 - India
RMF India Program Manager – Health and Nutrition Pratik Phadkule writes about his experience with CommCare and the challenges of treating Malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh.
Living in an age of extreme technological advancement certainly is a boon for mankind. This technological advancement has helped us in all the fields – communication, space travel, medicine, and engineering. Most importantly, with the help of this, our lives have become so much easier. I think, on this point, no one would disagree.
Photo: Village children in Madhya Pradesh
There is no question that technology is helping…
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Back to: mHealth: Malnutrition Eradication
August 29, 2013 - India
Two and a half years ago, I realized I had a large challenge in front of me. In order to complete the first step of our program, a baseline survey in 500 villages to determine the exact malnutrition situation we were dealing with, I was going to have to get creative. Sitting in front of me at the New Delhi train station, in heat of well over 100 degrees, were 500 survey books, over 1 ton of paper. I had a train ticket, 50 new workers at a training over 600 miles from where I stood, and 12 hours…
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Back to: mHealth: Malnutrition Eradication
August 29, 2013 - India
In March 2010, Caitlin and I were driving around Khandwa district on a motorcycle desperately searching for staff to begin operations of our ambitious “Eradicate Malnutrition” program. In our heads, we had a checklist of criteria for potential new staff, mostly focusing on education levels and any experience in the health, nutrition, or NGO sector. As we drove from hamlet to hamlet, over dried streambeds and through fallow, dusty farmland, the checklist was whittled down to one item: literate.
In July of 2011, 5 of our amazing CNEs from Khandwa are now on the cutting edge of technology,…
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Back to: mHealth: Malnutrition Eradication
August 29, 2013 - India
“Don’t automate a broken system”
Monitoring and evaluation is often the most difficult part of any development program. It’s often an afterthought for implementers, too busy worrying about rolling out the immediate and the tangible to worry about how they’ll evaluate their work at some later stage.
It’s important that data is not something that’s just written down in a grid each month and never seen again. The strongest programs are the ones in which ground level staff find their reporting useful in their daily work. By making data helpful to ground level…
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August 29, 2013 - India
PATIENT FOLLOW UP REPORT FOR RAHUL TRUST
Founded in 2012, Real Medicine Foundation India’s Rahul Trust supports children with health problems and helps them to get treatment. Over the past 2 months, RMF has identified and is working with 5 children from Barwani District in southern Madhya Pradesh.In June and July of 2012, RMF support enabled follow up and treatment for 3 children from Barwani District, Madhya Pradesh:
Mohit Solanki Jitendra Bunty Shivdarshan Sagar
Mohit Solanki
Mohit is from Kalyanpura Village Block and District Barwani. He is 6 years old.…
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Back to: Naiara’s Rahul Trust
August 29, 2013 - India
Photo: Naiara and Rahul after 2 months of treatment in May of 2012
I cannot stop thinking of how happy I feel knowing I made the right decision. For as long as I can remember, I had always wanted to have an experience like that. Knowing that most of the NGOs would not accept my help for less than six months, I decided at that point to postpone this experience until my PhD was over.
During my studies, I was lucky when in 2006 the Basque Government gave me a grant to go to Minneapolis…
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Back to: Naiara’s Rahul Trust
August 29, 2013 - India
In the following article, Nyamat Bindra, RMF India Director of Education, fills in Green Life Magazine on the progress and achievements of the Education Support at BHIL Academy.
For full text of article click on PDF link below image.
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Back to: Bhil Academy
August 29, 2013 - India
In 2006, one of RMF’s local partner NGOs ‘BHILS’ opened Bhil Academy, a residential school for poor tribal children in Jhabua, the district with the second lowest literacy rate in the state. The medium of teaching is English, which will allow them one day to work in any services industries or continue higher studies in teaching, nursing, medicine, engineering and agriculture. While studying at Bhil Academy, students become fluent in English and Hindi, in addition to their native Bhili and are prepared with the skills and the confidence to break the cycle of poverty that has trapped their parents…
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August 29, 2013 - India
It has really been a pleasure for me to see how, little by little, renewable green energies have become a part of our lovely school, the Bhil Academy. Because of the hard work and dedication of donors, volunteers, and partners, the Bhil Academy is becoming more and more ¨green¨ every day!
Solar Electricity from eV Renewables and Loop Solutions
In Jhabua, electricity is scarce and typically only available for a few hours a day. After the sun went down, the children could do little but go to sleep: our children could not study at night or…
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Back to: Bhil Academy
August 29, 2013 - India
Classes resumed last week at the Bhil Academy in Jhabua, Madyha Pradesh with the addition 40 new kindergarten students and a new grade, the 9th Standard. This is the first term that the 9th Standard will be taught, and the oldest class to attend the Bhil Academy yet.
With the new kids, the student body at Bhils has now grown to 300 of some of the poorest, most disadvantaged kids in India. The students are happy to be back at school and in classes rather than working the dry, hot fields back…
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Back to: Bhil Academy
August 29, 2013 - India
In 2006, one of RMF’s partner NGOs in India ‘BHILS’ opened Bhil Academy, a residential school for poor tribal children in rural Madhya Pradesh. The medium of teaching is English, which is the language essential for being able to work in any services industries or continue university studies in nursing, medicine, engineering and agriculture. After studying at Bhil Academy, students from the most rural parts of MP are fluent in English, Hindi, and their native Bhili and are prepared with the skills and the confidence to break the cycle of poverty that has trapped their parents for so…
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Back to: Bhil Academy
September 19, 2013 - India
In December 2009, RMF's Team India inaugurated a dormitory for girls at an English-medium boarding school in Dattigaon, a tribal village in Dhar District in the state of Madhya Pradesh. This dormitory was constructed through funding received by Aktionsgemeinschaft Partner Indiens (API), enabling girls from remote and far off villages to attend the school and receive high-quality education. Before constructing this dormitory, only girls from nearby villages were able to attend school. Now, more than 150 girls have access to education, with the school hosting more than 400 children altogether. The school is now independently run…
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August 29, 2013 - India
In December, RMF's Team India recorded the inauguration of a boarding school for 150 to 200 girls in Dattigaon, a tribal village in Dhar District in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The school building, which was mainly funded by a German NGO, Aktionsgemeinschaft Partner Indiens (API), was constructed in association with the Catholic Diocese of Jhabua; the initial architectural design and planning had been provided by Diébédo Francis Kere, a winner of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and much sought-after engineer of innovative architecture in developing countries throughout Africa and Asia.
The boarding…
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August 29, 2013 - India
A. Introduction
The Dhar District in the state of Madhya Pradesh has one of the lowest literacy rates of all districts in India, and the majority of its mainly rural population live below the poverty line. In part, this is due to the fact that the district is mainly inherited by Adivasis, the (mostly casteless) native people of India, who live in remote village communities, living off self-supply farming. For thousands of years, these tribes have maintained their unique cultural, religious and social origin. However, particularly due to unfavorable weather conditions and disinterest by society and politics,…
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August 13, 2014 - India
It is largely unknown that India, a vast country of a billion plus, has its own "native" or tribal communities which have inhabited the subcontinent for tens of thousands of years. One of these communities is called "Bhils" and lives in the isolated and barren district of Jhabua in central India. Characterized by abject poverty, drought and disease outbreaks, Jhabua has been consistently ranked over decades as having the lowest literacy of the country's over 600 districts. Helping the most vulnerable members of the Bhil community, the children, a group of local individuals who had the luck of receiving…
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Back to: Chetna Education and Healthcare Center for Children
December 11, 2014 - India
This program will involve the "Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness" (IMNCI) strategy of the World Health Organization and Unicef, which has already been adapted specifically for the Jhabua region. This training program will be imparted to Governmental and private kindergarden workers, nurses and health workers in order to assure prompt and proper diagnosis of sick and malnourished children and their immediate treatment or referral. Nurses, healthworkers as well as village leaders and traditional healers and midwives will also be trained in safe motherhood. The focus is on 122 villages of Rama block in the eastern part of…
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December 11, 2014 - India
The Neem tree is India's wonder tree as it plays an important part in healing and religious ceremonies throughout the country. The Bhils use Neem leaves for their effect in curing malaria and skin diseases. Lately, the Indian Government together with the United Nations Development Fund has developed a technique by which farmers are able to make pesticides from Neem seeds themselves. These eco-friendly insecticides have been evaluated in field trials and present with promising economic and employment opportunies while they make farmers independent from expensive chemical pesticides which have been used so far. This program will be initiated…
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Back to: Chetna Education and Healthcare Center for Children
August 29, 2013 - India
The School of Excellence is located in Alirajpur in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is run by Salesians of Don Bosco. The education in this school (6th to 12th grade) will allow its students to enter a college afterwards and acquire an Indian State Administration degree thus qualifying themselves for a well paid and responsible job.
One third of India's population lives in poverty. One of those groups that didn't profit from India's economic growth is the large tribal community. All students of the School of Excellence belong to one of those…
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By Initiative
- Childhood Malnutrition Eradication Program
- Adolescent Girl Outreach Program
- mHealth: Malnutrition Eradication
- Naiara's Rahul Trust
- HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Program
- Bhil Academy
- Boarding School for Tribal Girl Students
- Chetna Education and Healthcare Center for Children
- School of Excellence for Tribal Children
- The Healing Tree Project