Updates to RSS

Hello!

If you're seeing this page, that means you are still connected to the old Sangam India blog RSS. We redesigned our site recently and moved our blog to wordpress, which has a different format.

The new RSS feed is: http://blog.sangamindia.org/feed

Sorry for the inconvenience and hope you'll keep checking our blog!

Regards,
Sriram
Webmaster

Since there are so many people outside India who want to be involved with Sangam India and have valuable knowledge and insight, we are encouraging them to join the "abroad team" from their respective countries. At the moment, the most people who have shown interest reside in the United States and they have roughly formed along the lines of our team here, with a chairperson, treasurer, and public relations coordinator. Within the team, there will be people focused on education or healthcare or their respective field of expertise.

In order to synchronize the abroad team's planning and the Chennai team's action and implementation, the information will be streamlined and funneled through the US public relations coordinator. It is more efficient to have one point of contact so we will have one person in charge of passing on information from the US to India. As the process is put into action, we will work out the kinks in the system. The abroad team will be using a wiki to share information and collaborate across country lines, and we will periodically update on progress.

A Note on Internal Structure

Since there are so many people outside India who want to be involved with Sangam India and have valuable knowledge and insight, we are encouraging them to join the "abroad" team. The most members we have outside India at the moment are in the United States and they have roughly formed along the lines of our team in Chennai, with a chairperson, treasurer, and public relations coordinator. Within the team, there will be people focused on education or healthcare or their respective field of expertise.

In order to synchronize the abroad team's planning and the Chennai team's action and implementation, the information will be streamlined and funneled through the US public relations coordinator. It is more efficient to have one point of contact so we will have one person in charge of passing on information from the US to India. As the process is put into action, we will work out the kinks in the system. The US team will be using a wiki to share information and collaborate across state lines. We will update on the progress of this new development as it evolves.

Survey!

Written by Gautam Bagga, our survey coordinator

Hi, everybody, this is Gautam writing. I’ve been put in charge of the survey, and with regards to that, I’ve been cobbling one together over the last week or so. There are two purposes for this survey: the more obvious reason of data collection and incorporating that into future work we do in MGR Nagar, but additionally, we are looking to forge lasting bonds between ourselves and the inhabitants. Hence, I’ve tried to keep the survey as short as possible and have cut a lot of questions that were too difficult (and we’ve had to get rid of maternal health almost entirely…that’s something that we’ll do in the future). It should take around 15 minutes to do. We’re hoping to reach MGR Nagar at around 1700, and leave SRMC at around 1600. I’m going to be holding onto the Sangam India phone, so if there are any problems whilst taking the survey, then please give me a call.

We’re still not entirely sure on the numbers of volunteers that will be available, but if you have a few hours to spare, then please, PLEASE come down. I know that this isn’t particularly exciting work and there isn’t the direct feel-good factor that you get when helping at the camps but this work is just as important as it gives us a direction to work in over the coming months and years.

I’m going to do a quick breakdown of the survey, and its sections. Here it is:

We’re going to use census data to make things less confusing for you surveyor-folks. Each survey will have the occupants and a few details of theirs on the front page, to make it easier for me to decode the data.

Household – this is a section that you can fill by combination of simply observing the house (to see the quality of the walls, floor and roof) as well as asking a few simple questions. They’re fairly simple so all you need to do is circle the appropriate answer. It deals with their habitat and habits around it, including the bathroom status and water treatment/storage.

Environment – This deals with water sources for different activities and the source of lighting. It gives us an idea of how the average inhabitants of MGR Nagar are living, what they know about water treatment, and more importantly, what they don’t.

Hygiene – Basic hygiene questions about their washing habits. This is one of the most important segments, since rectifying any unsanitary habits is one of the ways that we can see a reduction in infection rates.

Health – A quick screening survey, just to find out what the prevalence of a few common conditions is like. Additionally, there are a couple of questions on access (where they’ve been and where they would go…both of these are important as we can identify which centres have earned the trust of the slum inhabitants). Rounding out this section are 2 questions: one is on smoking, and the other is on alcohol. In truth, we’re not expecting much statistical data from this, but we think that if anyone is likely to answer ‘yes’ to the alcohol question in particular, then it signifies the trust that we’re building between the people and ourselves. Still, it’s worth including.

Nutrition – Just to find out, roughly, what kind of society we’re looking at. Do they get enough fruits and vegetables? Are they eating enough in terms of calories? Does anyone take any supplements? An estimated 95% of the women will have anaemia. With that in mind…iron tablets, maybe?

Education – Finally, just a few quick questions on the adults’ level of education and whether they’d like to expand on that. Also, a quick note about the kids’ education level. This section is there since we’re trying to judge whether vocational programmes need to be put in place.

That’s about it. I’ll be filling in the front of the forms between 9pm tonight and tomorrow, so I hope you guys understood some of what was said above. I hope to see you tomorrow! Toodle pip!

• Survey Form
• Survey Handout
• Consent Form
  

Upcoming Survey, July 18th 2009

We have been working hard on our survey that we are going to be conducting this Saturday at the MGR Nagar Slum.

The objective of this survey is to learn more about the community and to use this information to determine how to best help the people there.

A large number of people have been involved in making the survey, a project that has been coordinated by Goutam Bagga, a volunteer from Sheffield, Britain.

The survey was developed by three teams:

• A health and nutrition survey, developed by Dr. Gayatri
• A sanitation survey, developed by Kathleen Bush, a PhD student from Michigan.
• An educational survey, developed by Educational Committee.

With the help of our wonderful volunteers, we hope to use this survey to collect data about the community. We have tried to keep the survey short in order to be able to cover more of the population.

We've also made a quick handout for the interviewers and a consent form for the interviewees is in the works.

We will be using the census data provided by Paadhai in order to quicken the data collection. An immense thanks to Krithika Rajaram, of our Educational Committee, for translating this into English in a usable format.

If you are in Chennai and would like to help us volunteer the survey; we could really use your help! The success of this survey will depend now on having as many volunteers as possible to ask questions. Please contact us if you are interested.

This is the survey we are using, attached as a PDF: MGRSurvey.pdf

Map of MGR Nagar Slum

This map was made by Alex on our visit to the MGR Nagar community 2 weeks ago. It's a simple map, spanning two pages, of the street where we are currently working.

Thanks a lot to Alex for his time and effort in making this map. We will be using it as we do our survey next week.

Map Page 1 (.jpg)


Map Page 1 (.jpg)

Meeting the Residents, July 11th 2009

Today we went on a visit to the MGR Nagar slum, what we had previously called 'slum B' in past posts. It was a wonderful and insightful visit.

We were a small group today, and we were glad to have many volunteers come from the city. We hope this is a trend that begins to pick up more and more. We divided into two main groups: the first group was the mapping group, with Katie and Kavi. They began work mapping out the community with a GPS device. We hope this information will help us as we conduct a survey and learn more about the population.

The second group consisted of the rest of the people. On the visit, we again met Mr. Ponuswami, who introduced us to the social workers of Paathai. Paathai is an organization which is focused on education. They send out social works to run classes in slums for the children there, 5 days a week. We met Ms. Yashodha, who worked for the organization, as well as Ms. Sudha, who works for the Balwadi Programme. They were wonderfully helpful in getting the kids together, having them sit with us. Yashodha has been working in this community for several years and she has done immense, wonderful work.

We started with the kids by having them stand up and introduce themselves by stating their name, their age, and what standard they had studied up to. The kids were very disciplined and were pleasant to work with. Once we had finished with this, we then divided the children up into two groups. The older children (more than 10 years of age) had a writing exercise - they were told to write down what they would like to be when they grew up. The younger children had a name game followed by a simple coloring exercise, which they greatly enjoyed doing.

From Ms. Yashodha, we were able to get a list of all the names of the children on an attendance register. Ms. Yashodha also had conducted a census previously, which we were able to take as well. This will make our work much easier as we conduct our survey.

It was a great, friendly visit and we learned a lot about our community. Mr. Ponuswamy also showed us a plot of land where we could build something, such as a community center, in the future. Perhaps in the future we will be able to build something in this area to help the community.

Thanks to everyone for coming out and helping with this project!

Website Back Up, Updates on Survey

We're very sorry about the week of blog downtime! We were having technical issues from our webhosting provider. We're going to be moving to a new provider in a few days time which will have more reliable service.

There has been a lot that has happened over the last week:

1. The visit to the MGR Nagar Slum on Saturday, which was a success. We'll share more about that in a post later today.
2. The new website, which is in its final stages and should be coming out this weekend.
3. The survey, which is set to go this Saturday, at 5:00 PM.

We'll need volunteers for the survey, so if you can come, please do contact us!

More about these three will be shared in upcoming posts.

Once again, we're very sorry for the downtime.

New Logo

The Sangam India logo seeks to embody the goals, beliefs, and hope of the Sangam spirit. We have adopted for the heart of our logo a classic symbol of transcendence: the lotus flower. Born into darkness and muck, the lotus eventually emerges high above its watery roots to bloom into a lovely flower. This symbolizes the core of our work, in which we assist and encourage those who are disadvantaged in courageously transcending their circumstances to achieve dignity, independence, and equity. The colors of the lotus petals also carry meaning for us: the red signals determination, strength, and vigor, while the light brown symbolizes the dirt of day-to-day challenges and hardships faced by many. At their intersection is a vibrant green, representing vitality and growth. This expresses our belief that when great determination is combined with firsthand experience of hardship, tremendous growth can happen. Finally, for the Sangam India typeface, we have chosen Archer, designed by Hoefler and Frere-Jones, for its welcomingly open forms and bold yet graceful feel.

-Tina Ye

Initiatives: Women's Issues

an excerpt from our upcoming website
written by Nivedita Gunturi

Problem Statement
In developing countries like India, underprivileged women are frequently uneducated, which leaves them disadvantaged and financially dependent on their husbands, brothers, and other male members of the family. Women are at higher risk for reproductive health issues, as well as other physical and social hardships. Women's health, emotional well-being, and ability to fend for themselves reflect a great deal on the socioeconomic indicators of a particular community. In fact, a community in which the women are not empowered cannot move forward until that deficiency has been remedied.

There are several factors at play, the most important of which is the cultural barrier which prevents women from reaching a state of independence and self-sufficiency. In many cases the women hold themselves back, having been born and brought up in a culture which does not value them as contributing members of society. They may devalue themselves, making their empowerment a matter of changing their attitudes in addition to changing their circumstances.

Education levels of women are usually much lower than those of their male counterparts. Female literacy rates are an important indicator of this disparity. As noted in India's 2001 census, "the disparity in the male and female literacy rates among the slum population is pronounced in almost all cities and towns.¹" It is estimated that only 65% of women are educated, compared to 77% among men². Furthermore, many women are uneducated about matters that are essential for reproductive health; for example, almost one third of women in urban slums have no knowledge of contraception³. Given that culturally, women are given sole responsibility for maintaining households and ensuring the well-being of their children, educating female children is vital.

Other social issues such as alcoholism among men, domestic abuse, and inadequate female representation in policy-making and judicial bodies hold women back, keeping them in a subordinate position. Women need to be taught and encouraged, especially by other women, to protect themselves and their children from injustice, and to give voice to their concerns and apprehensions, demanding equal consideration.

Importance of Women's Empowerment in Community Rehabilitation
Communities in which the women are given equal governing and economic roles have proven to be more successful in achieving stability and self-sufficiency. "Given the significance of women’s labour based economic contributions to the households among the poor," notes researcher Preet Rustagi, "improvements... concerning their educational and skill development gain tremendous importance for poverty amelioration.⁴"

It is vital, especially in conditions where the men in the households are not taking sufficient responsibility for the well-being of their families due to alcoholism, gambling, or other detractors, to give women the confidence, tools, resources and support system that they need in order to take financial and political responsibility upon themselves. Empowerment of an entire community has to begin with the empowerment of its women. It is only when the women have the confidence and social mandate to play a part in - if not lead - community policy and financial decision-making that the community can truly move forward.

Our Approach
We feel that the ideal way to empower women, given Sangam India's value system, is to help women to form self-help groups within the communities in which we work. These self-help groups will provide women with a sense of community and a support system to bolster their confidence. The self-help group model then opens doors across the board for better health practices for women, microfinance and microloans, community funds, and perhaps even a voice in policy-making and establishing rights.

To finish the rest of this article, check back on our upcoming website, releasing July 2009.

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1. Census of India 2001 - http://nuhru.in/?q=disknode/get/2/Slums%2520in%2520India%2520-%2520An%2520Overview.pdf&download
2. Shraddha, Agrawal and Bharti BM (2006). Reproductive health in urban slums. The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in India Vol 56 No 3 pp255-257. http://medind.nic.in/jaq/t06/i3/jaqt06i3p255.pdf
3. Chandramouli, Dr C (2003). Slums In Chennai: A Profile. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Environment and Health, Chennai, India, 15-17 December, 2003. Chennai: Department of Geography, University of Madras and Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. http://www.yorku.ca/bunchmj/ICEH/proceedings/Chandramouli_C_ICEH_papers_82to88.pdf
4. Rustagi, Preet et. al (2009). India: Urban Poverty Report 2009. United Nations Development Programme. http://www.undp.org.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=540&Itemid=646

Plans for the New Sites

We have a couple of immediate plans to share regarding the new sites in Ramavaram where we will be working. It is official that we are going to start operating in these areas and there is a lot of excitement about this.

This weekend, we are planning another informal visit to the slum. During this visit we hope to plan out some simple activities to do with the children; perhaps some name-games, some reading, or some coloring exercises. This is being decided by the Education Committee. In addition, a number of our members will work on a map of the slum using GPS mapping technology. We also hope to collect census data about the community during this time.

Over the next two weeks, we will be planning on a new survey to find out more information about the residents of the community. This is similar to what we did a year ago with the old community, but this time we hope our survey will be much more in-depth. Different departments are working on formulating their parts of the survey. The survey will address the following aspects: socioeconomic, health, sanitation, and educational. More information on the survey will be available soon.

Finally, the tentative date for the survey is be scheduled to be on Saturday, July 18th. We will need as many volunteers as we can get for this operation. If you are in Chennai and would like to volunteer, we really need you! Please contact us at +91 9789901650.

Locations for the New Project Sites

The new project sites are located in Ramavaram (Ramapuram,) Chennai.

The first site is directly across the site of our old project site. Approaching Porur from Guindy, it is seen on the left, just before MIOT hospital.

The second site is located down the street from the site of the old project site; it is reached by continuing the road that passes by the old site.

View map (.jpg)

You can also view the sites on Google Earth: Project Site A, Project Site B

Meeting Minutes, July 7th 2009

Today's meeting covered:

1. Summary of Saturday's visit
• Met Perulmalswamy
• Found two slums, approximately 350 houses in total.
• Several houses were burned down in the second slum
• People seemed receptive to our help.
2. Discussing the online Twitter presence
3. Pros and cons of adopting the new slums
• Along the river- risk of demolition
• Discussed new plans by Indian Government to be 'slum free' by 2013.
4. Decision made to start in a new place
• Census to be taken by the community
• Survey to be done to cover the following aspects: socioeconomic information, sanitation, education and healthcare.
• Probably to be done on Saturday, July 18th, 2009.
5. Survey plan in the works
6. Activity for this weekend (July 11th, 2009)
   
• Reading with the kids/simple games
• Mapping of the community.
7. General Body Meeting
8. Legal discussion

Initiatives: Hygiene and Sanitation

an excerpt from our upcoming website
written by Katie Bush

Problem Statement
Throughout history, the mass movement of people into urban areas has resulted in increased risk to public health. Slums in urban areas are often defined as having low quality drinking water, poor sanitation systems, and little to no household hygiene, all of which are conditions that threaten public health. Poor living conditions in slums are directly related to sanitation. Nearly 64% of slum residences in Chennai are defined as 'permanent-nature' slum dwellings, the rest are merely temporary settings¹. Additionally, 67% of slum residents live in single room houses. The semi-permanent and condensed nature of living conditions magnify the adverse health effects.

One of the largest challenges to public health in these slum areas is access to potable water; only 26% of the slum population has access to safe drinking water. Hand pumps supply 42% of the population with their drinking water and 31% have access via a tap. In addition, 33% do not have access to latrines. The lack of latrines leads to open air defecation, leading to disease and malnutrition due to parasitic and bacterial infections. Efforts to improve hygiene and sanitation must aim to reduce transmission of infectious agents. It is the goal of this group to investigate the effects of hygiene and health education in these slum areas on human health by carrying out surveys in the communities we adopt. Using this data, we will be able to develop more effective methods of solving sanitation and hygiene problems.

Importance of Sanitation on Community Development
Microbial contamination leading to diarrheal disease is one of the leading causes of death and disease worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 2 million children die of diarrheal disease each year. An even higher number of people fall ill due to poor hygiene and sanitation. Those suffering from diarrheal disease are also likely to suffer from malnutrition, impaired physical growth, and reduced immune response. High illness rates result in missed days of work and school for both the sick and those caring for them. Improving hygiene and sanitation will not only improve health, it may also lead to other social benefits such as improved school attendance, less time gathering drinking water, and less time caring for the sick.

Our Approach
Our approach will focus on hygiene education in the home. It is our hope that as people become more aware of the dangers associated with poor hygiene, a shift in behavior will result in improved health. We will also work with the community to promote a clean environment. It is our goal to help the community acquire the means to improve their water supply and garbage removal. There will also be targeted interventions aimed at promoting sanitation infrastructure.

Our Work So Far
Through the course of our educational programme, various lessons on health and hygiene were taught; emphasizing the importance of simple activities such has hand washing and personal cleanliness to children as a first line measure to reduce the transmission of disease. Children were taught, then asked to reinforce their lessons by demonstrating what they had learned to the group and by washing their hands under supervision. During our women's camp we were able to give women in the slum one-on-one instruction regarding reproductive hygiene. Additionally, dental hygiene was taught at our dental camp.

Plans for the Future
Future work will largely be dictated by the community we seek to help and their specific needs. Health education will always be a main focus of our efforts, regardless of the location and condition of our next project.

To finish the rest of this article, check back on our upcoming website, releasing July 2009.

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1. Chandramouli, Dr C (2003). Slums In Chennai: A Profile. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Environment and Health, Chennai, India, 15-17 December, 2003. Chennai: Department of Geography, University of Madras and Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. http://www.yorku.ca/bunchmj/ICEH/proceedings/Chandramouli_C_ICEH_papers_82to88.pdf

Visit to New Slums, July 4th, 2009

Today we went on a visit to search out the slums in the Ramavaram area. It turned out the be a very educational visit, and a real eye-opener about the current conditions of slums along the Adyar River.

Our initial plan was to go to the slum opposite to the one in Ramavaram where we had been working. We had first worked in this place almost a year ago, when we had conducted a medical camp. On that visit, we noted that the slum residents were cheerful and happy; they were glad to have the chance to utilize the services that we provided.

As we entered the area, we made an effort to identify a village leader, with whom we could establish a relationship with, and work together on future projects. We were quickly directed to the Councilor, Mr Perumalsami. We discovered that was a wonderful personality who took an immense interest in the affairs of his people. We spoke to him and he told us about the current situation with the slums in Ramavaram, especially of the ones along the Adyar River. Most of the people in the area are convinced that there is a program against the slums along the Adyar river - after our project slum burned down last month, two additional slums also caught fire. There were also several smaller fires as well. The most immediate concern of the residents was to prevent these fires from happening - Mr Perumalsami was indeed recently protesting against these fires.

Our conversation with Mr Perumalsami was very fruitful. We asked him some basic questions about the slum, and he was happy to answer them. There were approximately 170 houses in this area. He said that many of the people were in need of medical care. Sanitation facilities were very poor - none of the houses had bathrooms, and open-air defecation was commonly practiced in a nearby area. He wanted to show us a second slum, which was also nearby. This slum was back across the street, where the Ramavaram community was, only further down the road. We went there, and found another thriving community of 179 houses. 59 of these houses had been burned down in recent fires, and many of them were being reconstructed.

There was a palpable air of sadness in these communities. There was an immense fear among the people that they would lose their homes in fires. But they had few alternatives. Many of them stored their flammable belongings away from their homes due to these fears. Houses that had been burned down were being rebuilt. People were taking down their roofs and were trying to buy metal roofs that were more fire-retardant.

Despite these fears, the people were friendly and resilient. They were in touch with another NGO that was helping them to educate their children. They were interested in making a community center where classes could be held for them.

As we were meeting, Alex, our group artist, came along and started working on maps of these slum areas. These will be useful to us in our future projects.

We asked the community to come up with a list of the households in the community, with the names and ages of each of the family members. As we begin our own survey, we can use this to more quickly consolidate our data.

Thanks to everyone for coming today, and we appreciate the support that continues despite recent setbacks. We are determined to make a difference in this community, and we'll need lots of help to get it done. Finally, we'd like to welcome and thank to our new volunteer, Seeralan, from Vellacheri, and our guest, Katie Bush, from Michigan, USA.

View the rest of the photos from this visit.

Trip to Ramavaram Tomorrow, July 4th

Tomorrow we are planning a trip to a small slum opposite the former Ramavaram slum where we used to work. We are hoping that the trip will result in a small and informal meeting with the community elders; and we can learn more about the needs of the people there. Alex, our Sangam India artist, will be there to draw a map out of the place. We previously worked with this community during our November 2nd, 2008 health camp.

Our plans in this community will focus mostly on health education. In the meanwhile, we will continue the search for a new community to work.

We hope to get there by 5PM; and we should be there for about an hour. Please contact us if you're interested in coming.