5 team members and one great map

On Wednesday our team met with AmeriCares India, a non-profit organization making a remarkable impact on the health of people living in urban slums in Bombay. In 2009 they were voted the best NGO in India, and when you’re in competition with some 3 million NGOs, that’s quite a title to earn! 

AmeriCares sign

Their work focuses around three main pillars: medical commodity assistance, disaster response and preparedness, and mobile medical units. Perhaps what I enjoyed most about this site visit was that we were assigned a task that would greatly benefit the AmeriCares team: a mapping exercise. Because many of India’s slums are so densely populated in such a haphazard fashion, it is exceedingly difficult to be able to monitor and evaluate population coverage of various medical services. Therefore, the GW cohort broke up into three different groups and set out with AmeriCares staff members to map the Chandivili Pipeline area of a slum in Andheri East. 

GW team and AmeriCares staff preparing to head out for the mapping exercise

My team consisted of five members: myself, Dr. Vyas (one of the two GW professors on our trip), our teaching assistant Nitasha, Dr. Seema Peterson (one of the doctors from Americares) and one other AmeriCares staff member. Let’s just call us the Fab 5 (Olympic gymnastics, anyone?). We were assigned to map out the first section of the slum by identifying lanes, bylanes, and sub-bylanes and within those lanes, counting the number of doors. We also noted any landmarks that might be useful such as corner stores, latrines, temples, etc… It wasn’t the most scientific operation considering we used pencils and papers, but I think we did a pretty good job! 

Working on the map

While we were walking around, we stopped into one of AmeriCares medical centers and got to meet the staff members who were treating a line of people that formed at the door. They use laptops to log patient information and each patient has a unique 14-digit number used for tracking (similar to a social security number). All of the services are free. The map we produced will help them to better track their services within the community.

The Fab 5 in one of the AmeriCares medical centers

As far as slums are concerned, this was by far the nicest one I’ve visited. The streets were mostly laid with brick or stone and the houses had sturdy foundation. Now, don’t get me wrong, this was still a slum with trash mounds aplenty and poor access to potable water, among many other noticeable problems, but as I would learn later in the week, it could have been much worse. People also seemed highly interested in what we were doing, inquiring about the purpose of our survey. There were satellites scattered about the streets, a sign that televisions were likely to be found in many of the homes; everyone seemed to have a cell phone. Being the only white person on the Fab 5 team, I stuck out a little and seemed to get some lingering stares and waves from many residents. It’s not often that they get a freckle-faced girl from the States parading around their neighborhood! So, I just waved back with a smile, which seemed to excite many of the children. All three groups wrapped up their work and returned to the AmeriCares office for some lunch and discussion.

Community water pump

Over lunch, we learned more about some of the high-tech medical devices that they are in the process of piloting and my mind was blown! They are testing out a machine in which a person is identified either by their fingerprint or by face-screen recognition technology. Usually these devices are used for security (like in those crazy Jason Borne movies). Here, they are using it to better healthcare! Using a cloud-based computing system allows AmeriCares to track people and communities over time to identify health trends. I mean, wow! They also use a texting system, which reminds people on their cell phones about upcoming appointments or when to take their medications. I’d say this pretty much defines cutting-edge, especially given the environmental context in which they work.

After picking our jaws up from the floor, stunned from the technological devices, we returned back to the hotel, rested a bit and then prepared for dinner. Unfortunately, several students fell ill with some sort of stomach bug, so by the time dinner rolled around only five of us remained (plus our professors and TA). We piled into two taxis and after getting lost for a bit, arrived at the home of Fiona, a volunteer for the Society of Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA), where our group would visit on Friday. She had a beautiful home and graciously cooked dinner for our whole team. It was a feast! We ate with her and her family and got a sneak peek into some of SNEHA’s work. She talked in-depth about one of their many programs. One in particular employs women living in urban slums by collecting leftover scraps of fabric from local stores, training women on how to sew, and providing them with warehouse space, thus enabling them to create handbags, quilts and rugs. These products are then sold and the women earn up to four times their average monthly salaries throughout the process. This project epitomizes social entrepreneurship and the products were beautiful and exquisitely crafted! As a part of this course, we have to write a business plan using a social entrepreneurial model, and mine will focus on getting their products more widely marketed. I am thrilled to take on this task! We visited the warehouse later in the week. More on that to follow… 

Feasting at Fiona's!