The verycornerstone of every developed country is the health and prosperity of itspopulation. In both the socioeconomic and health sectors, India is a developing nation. A vital component of human life is healthcare and in India, healthcare is the fastest-growing industry. A country, with a population large or small,needs good and healthy environment.

As the world has leapfrogged in the field of medicine and healthcare, lifespans of humans have increased tremendously across the world in the past few decades. It is an incredible achievement that life expectancy has increased even in India, from 62.5 years in 2000 to 70 years in 2019. Even though these figures appear to be very good, they only represent an average of all the demographics that were included. Nevertheless, the most vulnerable communities are cleverly concealed by this.  

Unfortunately,for a very long time the Scheduled Tribes of India have been the most economically and socially disadvantaged minority in the country. Despite thegovernment of India's heroic attempts to remove all manifestations of casteism and racism, this tribe remain the most underprivileged group in the country. Theyare generally the ones who are still a long way from receiving even basic education,healthcare, and comfortable living.

The villages where the tribes reside are usually devoid of any healthcare centres. There isa severe lack of infrastructure and simply no knowledge of how to avoid common water borne and vector borne diseases like malaria and dengue. People suffering from common rural ailments like high blood pressure and malnourishment do not even have a clue of their medical condition.

Women suffer the most because of their dual responsibilities of caring for their homes and thefieldwork that ensures the survival of their family. They have simply learnedto ignore their issues and make do with whatever is available because they have limited access to any personal hygiene products. And this scenario becomes more terrible when we discuss about the women of the tribal community.

We want to shed some light on a few horrific incidents that occurred in the Madhya Pradesh villages of Alampura, Lulka, Gadha, Nayapura, and Agariya. These incidentsreally shocked us and exposed the harsh reality of rural life that cannot even be comprehended by individuals who are enjoying a pleasant urban lifestyle.

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The birth of a child is a celebration of happiness for everyone in the family, especially for the mother. The people in these villages, however, are quite afraid of this circumstance because of a lack of information and the distance from nearest medical facility, and occasionally the life of a mother and child is in danger.You will be able to understand their dilemma better with the help of the following cases.

Case 1. Mrs. Saraswati:  Her village only has one entrance, and it is not a fully paved road.

She was forced to walk this bush road when her labour began, and it was time to go to the hospital. Heavy rain caused the approach road to become slushy, making it impossible for any vehicles to reach her. Due to these conditions, the mother was compelled to give birth to her child in the middle of a jungle.

Case 2. Mrs. Rampyari: Even this woman had to give birth in the wilderness in a similar circumstance, albeit from the trolley of a tractor. Even a tractor would be unable to traverse the single road during the rainy season due to its terrible condition.

Case 3. Mrs. Mantiya: In the end, she was probably the most unfortunate of these women. Even she must arrive at the hospital in time for her delivery due to some complication. However, due to the lack of transport services and her late arrival, her unborn child died in the womb. The dead baby within poisoned herbody because of the additional delay in getting to the hospital. Subsequently,she passed away.

How insensitive must we be to merely let these things pass without any reaction?Will the future of our nation be based on this?

We, at SkillsArt and Beyond are driven to do as much as we can to eradicate such horrors andwork on village transformations to provide better opportunities to individuals living in remote parts of India. Constantly working with various government departments and other NGOs to come up with novel ideas that can truly bring about a revolutionary change. We have a program called Niramaya, which basically promotes healthcare for the underprivileged. Skills Art and Beyond has taken upon the task to uplift the basic healthcare facilities of these 5 tribal villages of Raisen district in Madhya Pradesh in partnership with AIIMS Bhopal. These villages are home to the Gond tribe and have very limited accessibility which further hampers their access to healthcare infrastructure and services.

We have plan toset up a General Awareness Camp in these villages where we will:

●    Create awareness regarding general health issues like nutrition, personal hygiene, sanitation, menstrual problems,and immunization.

●    Distribute sanitary napkins foryoung girls and women.

●    Make people aware with vectorborne & water borne diseases and their prevention & cures.

●    Distribute general medicines.

●    Measure weight and height of children and provide a diet chart according to their needs to their parents.

There will be an Advanced Healthcare Camp too, in which we propose to focus on the reproductive health of women and will:

●    Make women aware of reproductive health.

●    Create awareness regarding birth control methods.

●    Distribute sanitary napkins for young girls and women.

●    Make women aware of their personal hygiene.

●    Develop knowledge of other sustainable alternatives of sanitary napkins (like menstrual cups).

●    Create awareness regarding prenatal and postnatal care.

Basic healthcare is a human right, and we pledge to work in our best capacity to provide such assistance to people in need, across the country. We hope that everyone reading this, decides to help their community in whatever capacity they can. It is not a responsibility of only the Indian government to handle such circumstances.We, as the citizens of this great nation, should also extend a helping hand to all those in need.

We are gratefu lto AIIMS Bhopal for offering their full assistance in advancing our cause.

Their collaboration is crucial to our organisation, and we intend to continue doing so until our objectives are met.

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