HEALTH
The goal of the Aga Khan Foundation's (AKF) health programme is to achieve sustainable
improvements in health status among vulnerable groups, especially the geographically remote,
women of childbearing age and children under five.
AKF promotes improvements in health policies, financing mechanisms and basic services while
enabling communities to adopt effective health practices.
It also promotes initiatives that offer people the knowledge and skills to avoid illness. These
measures include educating women and girls and enabling families to adopt appropriate
hygiene practices.
- Learn more about AKF’s work in Health
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME IN GUJARAT
India is the world’s largest democracy and home to over 1.13 billion people. According to World Bank estimates, 800 million of them live in poverty.
Despite outstanding economic performance over the last two decades, India’s immense vastness and the sheer challenge of overcoming economic deprivation in the poorer parts of the country remain a key national challenge.
The Aga Khan Foundation, India has a long and sustained engagement in India which covers the regions of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. AKF, India seeks to
address a broad range of issues including rural development, education, maternal health and microfinance programmes.
In 2001, AKF India implemented the Environmental Health Improvement Programme
(EHIP), which aims to improve the quality of life, health status and living conditions of rural
communities, especially women in the reproductive age group, children under the age of 5 and socially marginalised groups.
EHIP also focuses in particular on providing improved water supply systems and sanitation
units.
- Learn more about AKF’s Environmental Health Improvement Programme
- Learn more about AKDN's work in India
OUR IMPACT
To date the Environmental Health Improvement Programme has helped:
- 80,000 villagers in 50 villages in Gujarat benefit from a healthier living environment.
- Women have benefited the most in terms of privacy, safety, convenience and dignity.
- In 2008, 3107 toilets and 2988 bathrooms were constructed.
- Overall sanitation coverage since inception in project villages has increased by over 20% and 12 villages have 100% coverage.
- 20 project villages have received the prestigious “Nirmal Gram Puraskar” (a clean village award) from the President of India, for total sanitation coverage.
CASE STUDY
Kamiben lives in Shergadh village, Junagadh district, Gujarat with her husband, son and other family members. Their home is a semi-permanent single room dwelling with neither a toilet nor a bathroom.
Kamiben, like many other women in the village, would have to wake up before dawn, to walk half a kilometre to reach a suitable area to go to the toilet. When a secluded area is not available there is no option but to go in an open area. Children cannot be left alone while women need to use the toilet and therefore some women don’t go all day. The ordeal for sick or pregnant women is greater as they have to stop many times along the way to rest.
For years Kamiben had to change her eating habits and deprived herself of particular types of food such as pulses, potatoes and rice, in order to avoid having to use the toilet. These are a few compelling reasons why Kamiben felt that having a private toilet was essential. Finally convinced, her family decided to build its own toilet as part of the AKF’s Environmental Health Improvement Programme in Gujarat.
With the support of the AKF, things are slowly changing in rural Gujarat. The simple pleasures of life are no longer out of bounds for women like Kamiben, who now have the feeling of empowerment and dignity that comes from having their own toilet within the privacy of their own home.
