As
S. Sumanawathi and her son walk around the small vegetable plot
in front of her house, she stoops to pluck some green beans
and ladies fingers which will be made into a spicy curry for
the family lunch.
Sumanawathi is a participant in a home garden project in Sri
Lanka’s southern district of Kalutara which is part of
a wider community based health programme (CBH) being implemented
by the Spanish Red Cross and Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRCS) across
nineteen villages in the district. The project is providing
seeds and training to vulnerable families with the aim of encouraging
families to eat a more nutritious and balanced diet. “All
the vegetables we now eat we grow ourselves. We have even been
able to share some of the produce with relatives and neighbours,”
explains Sumanawathi.
The home garden project is run by village health committees,
many of whose members are beneficiaries themselves. Each committee
levies fees from its members and Sumanawathi’s committee
in Kalutara South hopes to use the income raised to purchase
eye glasses for needy members of the community and to conduct
a mobile health clinic in her village.
Since the 2004 Asian tsunami, the health and care programmes
of the SLRCS have undergone a dramatic expansion with programmes
that now cover First Aid training, community based health, psychosocial
support, public health in emergencies and HIV awareness and
prevention. The greatest investment has been made in developing
the SLRCS’s community based health programmes. There are
currently 14 CBH programmes supported by 10 partner Red Cross
societies in 13 districts.
In a remote area of the northern district of Puttalam, a CBH
project run by the SLRCS and the Japanese Red Cross is having
a big impact on the health and welfare of economically marginalized
villagers in the area. The CBH programme is comprised of three
main pillars - improvements to water and sanitation infrastructure,
improvements in nutrition and building the capacity of community-based
organizations.
Thirty kilometres north of Puttalam lies the village of Eluvankulam
which is situated close to a former frontline area separating
government forces and those of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE). Following an attack during the long running conflict,
the village was re-located to a new site two kilometres away,
but well water in the new location was found to be brackish
with limestone deposits. The Red Cross stepped in and made repairs
to the well at the old village, constructed a pump house and
is installing a pipeline that will bring water to the new village.
In total, three community wells were built or re-habilitated
in three villages together with storage towers and distribution
lines. 1,000 households from the three villages of Eluvankulam,
Rambaganayagama and Divulwewa will benefit from the new water
system.
The village health committee in Eluvankulama supervises construction
of the water infrastructure using local masons and in the future
it will charge monthly rates from each household to cover the
maintenance and operating costs of the network. Each family
is expected to contribute to the cost of branch pipelines that
will connect their individual household to the main grid. 52
such village health committees have been set up by the Red Cross
in the different local administrative divisions in the district.
They, together with additional Red Cross volunteers, drive CBH
projects in the villages.
Many of the families targeted under this programme are extremely
poor and are living with very basic facilities. Some lack toilets
- which led the Red Cross to construct new toilets for almost
100 families across the three villages.
Complementary to the water and sanitation scheme is a hygiene
promotion and nutrition programme that is targeting 45,000 people.
Red Cross volunteers visit 9,000 homes across the district.
Teams – comprised of a community health promoter accompanied
by 2 SLRCS volunteers – spend three days each week making
house calls.
“We raise awareness about basic hygiene issues like not
washing food or cooking on the floor. We advise people to boil
water before drinking it and explain that they shouldn’t
leave water containers open for mosquitoes to breed in,”
explains Red Cross volunteer Yamuna Amaranth.
Although the volunteers are only able to each family every few
months, levels of awareness amongst the village community are
already much higher.
“I now cover all pots, pans, the coconut scraper and even
the grinding stone as I don’t want germs to get into the
food I cook for my family,” says Kusuma Rajapakse.
|
 |
 |
|
|
Beneficiaries
register for a Sri Lanka Red Cross and Japanese Red Cross
supported community health based (CBH) project in the
northwestern Sri Lankan district of Puttalam. Under this
programme, The CBH programme is comprised of three main
pillars - improvements to water and sanitation infrastructure,
improvements in nutrition and building the capacity of
community structures. (p16674)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
S.
Sumanawathi gathers vegetables from her home garden in
the southern Sri Lankan district of Kalutara. The home
garden project is part of a wider CBH programme in 19
villages of the district, implemented by the Sri Lanka
Red Cross and Spanish Red Cross. (p16675)
|
|
News
