A Mother's Hope: Success in Ahmedabad

Kokilaben Vinodbhai Khumra lives in the heart of Ahmedabad, a city in the Gujarat State in India, with her 22-month-old daughter, Avany. Like any new mother, Khumra was overjoyed to bring a baby into the world, but her neighborhood's squalid conditions and lack of medical resources worried her. In a country where 42 percent of the children are undernourished, the lives of children like Avany are in serious jeopardy.
 
"I have been living in this community for ages in the midst of health problems with no real support coming from outside," Khumra says. "We knew nothing of many things that are basic for living."
 
Working with local partner Saath, Counterpart International (Counterpart) created the Jeevan Daan program to connect mothers with maternal health specialists. Jeevan Daan, which means 'the gift of life,' has been instrumental in reducing infant mortality by improving caretaker practices and giving parents better access to quality care.
 
The Counterpart community health organizers are able to provide one-on-one attention to clients and respond to the specific challenges of parents in Ahmedabad. The program helps families keep immunization records in a centralized place so that medical histories are easily accessible by health care providers anywhere in the region. Counterpart also puts on plays in the neighborhoods to dramatize the importance of various health procedures and the advantages of conventional health care. Counterpart employees regularly host workshops, attend community rallies and visit the homes of families. 
 
"The health organizers are there when we need them the most," says Khumra. "They come home and talk to our mothers individually; treat our children as their own," she says. 
 
The result is a measurable improvement in children's health care. Since the current program was launched in 2000, immunization rates for children under 23 months in Ahmedabad rose by 34 percent while 80 percent of mothers, up from 7 percent, can identify danger signs of childhood illness that indicate the need for treatment.

Please read more about Counterpart's Jeevan Daan Maternal and Child Survival Program.

Photos: © Counterpart International.