Sanma Healthy Village

A Practical Approach to Prevent Diseases and Enhance Health among the slums and villages of Rural India

A true denial of opportunity is demonstrated when a child is denied of adequate amount of nutrition that would allow him develop his learning skills. Still, millions of children are denied of that opportunity every day.

Numerous poor mothers are deprived of a chance to birth a healthy child, just because they do not have access to information that saves life!

Simple, yet preventable diseases deny thousands of children a healthy life, and in many cases, the life itself! More than 1500 children die each day to diarrhea. And that is preventable, provided the mothers are supplied with basic information.

Each day, thousands of children are born who are severely underweight. Such children do not get to develop their ability to learn, and thus, to reach their full potential. While lack of finances cause people to live such tragedies, they have undeniable relationship to the lack of information also. When information to save life is not communicated, when people are not provided with the knowledge to prevent diseases, people are denied opportunity to live healthy.

The Healthy Village program of Sanma, a comprehensive health development program for rural India

Sanma Healthy Village program suggests a comprehensive solution. Since 2002, we have taken a practical approach to the tragic situation that affects the health and lives of people in the slums and poor villages of India, and have developed a system. The systems is now developed to be scalable in India, and is applicable anywhere similar conditions exists.  

The program enables busy medical professionals and others to make a positive and lasting impact on a large number of people with minimum investment of time and money. The program provides rural South Asian villagers information and advice that will help them save lives. Hundreds of thousands of villages do not have adequate medical help available and people fall victim of poor health and/or deadly diseases due to lack of knowledge on basic health and hygiene methods. The program is conducted in cooperation with medical professionals, philanthropists and relief workers from the local community and around the world.

How you can help the program?

You can help by volunteering, and by financing projects such as the ones listed here.

Healthy Friends coloring book and crayons for children $1

Personal hygiene set (Toothbrush, paste, and soap) for a child $3

 Healthy Friends coloring book and crayons for an entire village $150

Personal hygiene set (Toothbrush, paste, and soap) for a colony $450

Sponsor doctor's visit and one-time prescription for a child $15

Sponsor health literacy for a poor family $18

The scope and purpose of Healthy Village

The Healthy Village program takes information to people through community based educational program. The program teaches people simple that people can do to prevent diseases and to avoid disasters. Sanma's Health Information Specialists collects information from the medical professionals and convey them to the slum dwellers and rural villages. The program is implemented through classes conducted at Sanma Community Education Centers, awareness and medical camps conducted at villages.

Through these avenues, lifesaving medicine as well as lifesaving information are provided to the people. The staggering number of infant deaths and widespread of diseases such as diarrhea, malaria, and even AIDS can be controlled with the proper application of the Healthy Village program.

The Healthy Village program directly contributes to the physical, and thus financial, health of people who do not have the means to receive professional medical help. Methods are easily applicable, bringing immediate results to their families and surroundings. Transformation takes place within just months after the completion of the program because the information and training provided are usable without any further cost to the end-users.

A coloring book performs miracle for children!

Ever wondered how to save a million children?' Well, here is a practical way! Children know a lot about coming up with new ideas to play; but not about staying healthy or keeping themselves clean. And that is costing their lives, especially when their parents did not have health literacy.

Their homes or villages do not have any pre-set standards that would require the upholding of sanitary living conditions. The result? Millions of people live in dangerously low health conditions.

Sanma's Children's Healthy Village program addresses this problem at the grass root level by conducting Healthy Village seminars at Community Education Centers and at public schools. The program is designed in such a way that children can monitor their progress with little supervision.

Children are empowered and motivated to practice healthy life habits through coloring projects. To millions of children, this "Health Improvement Coloring Book" will be the first coloring book they have ever owned! Meanwhile, the parents are educated to maintain healthy living conditions. They are provided with knowledge to safeguard water sources, and informed of ways to prevent the spreading of diseases from person to person, or animals to people.

There are tools available to make this world a better place, but we must use them!

Who finances the program?

The well wishers of Sanma include individuals, businesses, and organizations that share the concern for the less fortunate, and those who understand the social and economic dangers of the unsanitary situation that is affecting more than 150 million people in the world.

Who is eligible to be a Sanma Health Information Specialist?

A person with a high school diploma or higher education, a heart to volunteer to teach and help others may receive training to become a Sanma Health Information Specialist.

What does a Information Specialist do?

A Sanma Health Information Specialist provides information on better hygiene methods, how to prepare home remedies for common ailments, and introduces ways to help people prevent contagious diseases that affect humans as well as animals.

Does the Health Information Specialist provide any medical advice?

No. Unless he/she is a medical professional who is licensed to work in the area, SANMA Information Specialists are not to give any medical advice. The information provided by the Information Specialist is supplied by highly qualified medical professionals in the respective fields.