Audio Visual Aids, Slides on Nutrition, Health and Sanitation and Pre-School Education.

CHETNA developed three slide sets on topics of Nutrition, Health and Sanitation and Pre-School Education. Comprehensively designed, these slide sets are meant for use by Educators, Trainers, Teachers and other functionaries who are involved in organising nutrition, health education and pre-school activities in formal and non- formal settings. The script is available with the slides.

Video Film on CHETNA

CHETNA's activities have been documented in a film which highlights CHETNA's strategy, including community level activities, supervisory level trainings, follow up and support activities. It provides a glimpse of CHETNA's educational material which has been developed based on experience and extensive field research. Eminent personalities and partners with whom CHETNA has worked appear in the film to share comments and testimonials, illustrating the impact of CHETNA's work. The film traces the extent of involvement and effort that is required to make every project undertaken a success. The film was updated in 2004, the 25th year of CHETNA's Foundation to include the shift in CHETNA's focus from the health of mother and child to a rights based approach, which envisions “Empowerment of women, young people and children to be able to make decisions related to their own health, that of their families and communities”.

Yuva Mela (Youth Fair) Reaching out to Young People

Yuva Mela (Youth Fair) was organised by CHETNA and partner NGOs of Gujarat as a strategy to reach out to 5000 young people and stakeholders from different socio economic backgrounds. The fair was organised on the road side near a popular pilgrimage in Gujarat where thousands of pilgrims travel during a particular month every year. Traditional form of dance drama, “Bhavai”, role plays and street plays were used to disseminate messages in a simple, easy to understand manner to address complicated issues like Gender Equality; Women's Rights; RTI/STI/HIV/AIDS and for highlighting the critical role of young people in ensuring a healthy future. The strategy proved to be hugely popular while reaching out to young people and other community stakeholders including parents, teachers, government, media etc. The event has been documented and is available in a CD. The effort is that an innovative strategy, which can hold the attention of 5000 stakeholders can be utilised for further replication in reaching out to the communities.

Towards a Healthy Life

CHETNA's experiences of implementing a health education strategy for water awareness in Banaskantha district, Gujarat, India, with the active involvement of functionaries of Government organisations and local Non Government Organisations has been documented in the film. The documentary film depicts a variety of innovative health education methods. Extracts from Women's Health training and Children's Fair which have been utilised to ensure active and sustained involvement of women and children in the health education programme are included.

Training Modules on Ageing Women (e-book)

The CD on Training Modules on Ageing Women covers the concept of ageing and feminisation of ageing demography of older population globally and in India. The module also covers nutrition, health and health care of ageing women. A section for dealing with herbal medicines is also included. The module especially deals with different types of living arrangements and importance of family care and support for this age group. Inter-generational relationship, socio-economic status, legal provisions for ageing women and special concerns of widowed, divorced, deserted and never married women are also covered. The CD has profiles of women to showcase their contribution in social development. These modules are a resource for those individuals and organisations which wish to work with ageing persons with a special focus on women.

Looking Beyond

A film has been developed with the objective of sharing the process of empowering adolescent girls and boys of urban slums. It depicts comprehensive and innovative interventions aimed at developing young people as active change agents in their community.

CD on Innovative Approaches to health education

CHETNA has initiated several approaches using traditional communication methods to enhance contemporary learning. Some of these approaches among children and women are documented in the CD. Gram Yatra (Village Rally): To ensure active participation of community members in nutrition and health education. This strategy has been an effective way of creating community awareness. Balmela (Children’s fair): An innovative and effective strategy to impart health education to children. The film showcases how children can be involved and motivated protect and promote health. Women and Health (WAH!): To develop capacities of middle level health managers of NGOs and GOs from a gender sensitive and comprehensive health perspective. Integration of traditional health and healing practices is the strength of this programme. The film serves as an effective training/reference material for educators, trainers, teachers, communicators and individuals.

Active learning Joyful learning

A creative approach in changing mere ‘learning’ to ‘taking action’ is built on the premise of Child to Child (CTC) approach. CHETNA promotes children’s participation in health and development through active learning methods like games viz. snakes and ladders, light game, passing the parcel, etc. that enable greater interaction between children and parents and adults/teachers. To demonstrate the approach, CHETNA together with its partners organized Summer camps in five identified field sites both in formal settings and in the non-formal centres of the urban slums of Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Learning to Survive

This 25 minute-film describes CHETNAs’s strategies to empower communities to improve access to maternal health services. It showcases CHETNA’s experience of working in 60 tribal villages of Gujarat state. Some simple but effective efforts like training health functionaries and community members at grass root levels have shown results in improving their access to antenatal health services and institutional deliveries. The film also shares socio-cultural challenges of working on issues of maternal health in the community. The film is an example of working in close collaboration with government and community level stakeholders to discuss challenges and solutions so as to bring about positive change in the lives of mothers. It is an ideal resource for NGOs and government organisations to learn about various training and health communication strategies and the community level mechanisms that evolved during programme implementation to improve access to maternal health services in tribal areas. These efforts are easily replicable and have proved to be cost effective.

Listening to Community Voices – Public Hearing on Maternal Health:

Three public hearings were organised in Rajasthan with an objective of sharing issues and concerns of women and community members accessing Maternal Health Services. A film on these public hearings is developed by CHETNA.