On the support of Project HOPE and CDP, Nepal Public Health Foundation has been working in the maternal neonatal child health nutrition practices in the rural areas of Makwanpur district through SPARSH-M project. Its main objective is to improve maternal neonatal and child health nutrition and hygiene practices by increasing access to related information and services. SPARSH-M is reaching to unreached population through different strategies i.e. Community mobilization, Capacity building and community outreach program and different activities i.e. capacity building, health system straightening and demand generation.

SPARSH-M project has been completed following activities in past sixth months:

Construction of maternity waiting home

Institutional delivery is low in SPARSH-M working areas due to the geographical inaccessibility to Health Centers. It is very hard for the pregnant women to visit health post during the days near to her expected date of delivery due to the geographical hardship. Many incidents of birth of baby on the road has occurred while travelling up to  the health post for delivery causing life taking threats for baby and mother both. Due to these problems, Nepal Public Health Foundation with collaboration with Rakshirang Rural Municipality initiated the construction of maternity waiting home near Rakshirang Health Post in the month of December 2017 and has successfully completed the construction in April 2018. It aims to increase the institutional delivery and healthy child growth by providing the shelter to the pregnant women and her care taker during the last month of delivery.

FCHV day celebration

FCHV day is celebrated every year with the aim to honor the contribution of FCHVs on improving health status of community health status of people. This year FCHV day celebrated in the month of January 2018 with the theme. Nepal Public Health Foundation has supported financially and technically in its working areas for celebration of FCHV day. Altogether 47 female community health volunteers were honored and appreciation was done through certificates for their hard work and contribution in building healthy society.

Interaction and orientation with School teachers on MNCHN

School health program in the main activity of SPARSH-M project and School health teachers play the prime role while conducting health education program in school, and also teachers play great role in promoting healthy behaviors, positive at attitude towards health. Teachers are considered as key for changing behavior of students.  Therefore, SPARSH-M had also envisioned the orientation and interaction program with school teachers on Maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition. And in the month of November 2017, interaction and orientation with school teachers on MNCHN was conducted. Altogether, 15 school teachers were participants in the program.

4. Community Health Score Board

Community score board is a two-way and ongoing participatory tool used in the assessment of the quality of health services. It is a platform where community stakeholders discuss the different aspect of health and calculate the quality of health service being provided by the health post and rank their health post within th  e range of 0-50 score. Every six month SPARSH-M conducts this activity in its working areas to track the achievement and hurdles for progress in health services improvements and to assign the person to assist to solve the issues if any. In last 6 months 4 events of community health score board was conducted.

5. Community health education and revitalization mothers group for Health

In the month of March, Raksirang Rural Municipality conducted “Community Health Education and revitalization of mothers group for Health” with an objective to engage the rural municipality in the health activities being implemented via mothers group and also to support mothers group for health. In this event SPARSH-M provided the technical support to the rural municipality to conduct the community health education and revitalization of mothers group.

6. Celebration of national events

SPARSH-M is being involved in every health events organized by district public health office, central regional health directorate and health post. This year staffs of SPARSH-M participated in different national events to support the event and its successful implementation. The major events in which SPARSH-M was involved during last 6 months were, Mental Health Day, National Health Service Day, FCHV day etc.

7. Strengthening of mothers group for health (MG-H)

 Support for regular functioning of Mother’s Group meeting has been a regular activity of SPARSH-M in its working area. Before the implementation of the SPARSH-M there were only few mothers’ groups in some wards of rural municipality (formerly known as VDCs) which were functional and among them only some mother’s group used to discuss on health topics during their meeting. Therefore, SPARSH-M took its step ahead for reformation and revitalization of the mother’s group. Reformation and revita  lization was achieved 100%. Along with this, social mobilizers (SMs) have been supporting FCHVs to run the educational and discussion sessions on components of Maternal, Neonatal Child Health and Nutrition (MNCHN).  In last six month 47 FCHVs organized 294 MG-H session and among them Social Mobilizers attended 152 mother groups meeting to provide technical support. SPARSH-M, also has been supporting mother group meeting financially, monthly each mother group receives Rs. 450 for the purchase of tea and other commodities necessary for mother group.

Peer group

Peer group activity is one of regular activity of SPARSH-M project.  The peer group is a group of 7-15 persons with similar characteristics and with common needs. SPARSH-M has been actively involved in formation of peer groups and deliveri  ng key messages of the SPARSH-M related to MNCHN and hygiene using different methods within the peer group members. In last 6 months about 119 sessions of peer group was conducted in the working area of SPARSH-M to discuss and deliver the key health messages among the various peer groups. Peer group activities

9. Home visit

Home visit is a regular activity in SPARSH-M project. Each SM is assigned to reach minimum 10-12 households in a month. SM targets beneficiaries who were not covered by both mother’s group meetings and peer group activities. SM does home visits to educate and counsel beneficiaries and their family members on MNCHN and hygiene and services available in the health post of their localities. In last 6 months around 300 household was visited by the social mobilizers for the health education and counseling.

10. Referral fund

Since from the beginning of the SPARSH-M project, referral fund has been an impactful act for life saving. The pregnant women and under 5 years children from ultra-poor families, who are in need of health services from higher health facilities (for BC/EoNC and severe illness) as  identified by the Health post in-charge are the beneficiaries for the referral fund. SPARSH-M has been providing transportation cost as referral fund to those people from ultra-poor families, so that they could travel to the higher health facility quickly and prevent themselves and their children from the danger of complications or loss of life. In last six months total 15 ultra-poor households were benefited from referral fund.

11. Support in EPI/ORC

Social mobilizers of SPARSH-M, has been actively supporting health workers regularly in all EPI/ORC clinics to meet the beneficiaries and to deliver health education messages on maternal child health nutrition and hygiene practices in mass which gathers during the EPI/ORC events.

12. Water and vector borne disease prevention training

Water borne and vector borne diseases are always public health concern in the disaster prone areas as the disaster and climate change are playing great role in breeding and shifting of vector from one place to another. Disaster also makes people more vulnerable to the  water and VBDs as it disrupts the normal living condition by damaging the houses, road, embankment, sewage system etc. hence, creating favorable environment for the vectors.

Makwanpur district is also high risk areas for water and vector borne diseases because it is adjacent to Tarai district, seasonal landslides, cross boarder population movement, lack of awareness, lack of health services etc. Therefore Nepal Public Health Foundation has conducted training for health worker and FCHV on Water and Vector borne diseases prevention with the aim to increase the awareness and built capacity of health workers and FCHVs on water and vector borne diseases. The training for health workers was of 5 days and that for FCHV was of 2 days.

13. Health awareness camp and hygiene kit distribution.

With the aim to promote the healthy behaviors and enhance the awareness level of community people, Nepal Public Health Foundation conducted health awareness camp in its working areas along with hygiene kit distribution. The target beneficiaries for the hygiene kit distribution were pregnant women and mother with under 2 years children. About 1700 beneficiaries were benefited with hygiene kit.