Sundays races will feature an association with SNEHA - a leading womens NGO
Posted on - 04 Dec 2013
Sneha, Society for Nutirion , Education and Health Action is an NGO started in 1999 by a group of pediatricians from the Sion Hospital together with committed social workers. SNEHA, as the name implies stands for LOVE. This emotion drives our efforts: love for the women and children bearing the dual burdens of poverty and suppression in our society.
The urban poor are already subjected to far worse living conditions than their rural counterparts in villages. Lack of sanitation and clean water significantly affect physical health, while limited resources breed frustration and compromise mental wellbeing. Impoverished urban communities are marked by greater incidents of illness and acts of violence. Sneha has chosen to work in the most vulnerable slums of Mumbai. We work in Dharavi, Kandivili, Ghatkopar, Mankurd and many other slums across Mumbai, Thane and Bhayandar.
Our work centers around issues of health not by holding camps and distributing medicines but Health through Empowerment. We believe that if women in the slums are given the knowledge and are allowed to take decisions she can influence not only her health but that of the family and her community.
Sneha works on different aspects of health – Maternal, Child Health and Nutrition, Adolescent and Reproductive health and Prevention of violence against women – the entire lifecycle of a woman.
Sneha also works in close partnership with the Government, Corporates, other NGO’s and International bodies like the UNICEF and the WHO.
Over the last decade SNEHA has made a considerable impact on health in its various programs. Neonatal mortality rate (per 1000 live births) dropped from 18.26 to 10.54 in a population of 200,000 in one of our program areas in the slums of Ghatkopar (2007-2010).We have achieved 48% and 12% reduction in prevalence of severe and moderate malnutrition respectively in a program in childhood malnutrition in Dharavi. This program now covers a population of 300,000 children from birth to 3 years of age. 4000 girls and boys have completed the Adolescents Gaining Ground program and demonstrated a change in knowledge and attitude, skills and practices.
Use of modern spacing methods of Family Planning has increased from 12% to 30% in a year and a half. In Rajiv Gandhi Nagar over 2000 women received counselling and intervention at our crises centre.
Since Sneha’s work is all research based, we have publications in various international peer reviewed journals and are frequently quoted
Our work is just beginning. If we have to reach the 6 million population that lives in our slums, we have a long way to go. It is only through the help and support of all our funders that we can continue to strive to reach our mission of “Healthy Women and Children for a Healthy Urban World”
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