The World Health Organization observes World Health Day annually on 7 April, and in 2023, celebrates 75 years of improving public health. It’s an important day to recognise global actions to tackle the health challenges of today – and tomorrow.

Last year through Opportunity’s locally-led community health programs, 1,042 Health Leaders and 200 Health Entrepreneurs were trained bringing primary health services to close to one million people – including some of the most vulnerable and hard to reach families, with a focus on women’s health issues.

Opportunity’s health program is on an exciting trajectory of growth and expansion – reaching new areas of India, Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh, and facilitating sharing of knowledge and practices between communities.

_{A health leader conducting a session about menstrual hygiene}

Delivering essential health products to communities that need them most

As the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted gaps in public health and health inequity in rural versus urban areas, Health Leaders became more important than ever in delivering services and education, and ultimately, creating more resilient communities.

As well as delivering primary health services, 2022 also saw innovations in the Health Finance program with Opportunity launching digital financial products like health mutuals, insurance, loans and savings to protect vulnerable families to avoid economic shocks from health spending.

Millions of families living in poverty are one disease away from losing everything, highlighting the importance of affordable health financing solutions and educating communities on keeping their families healthy.

_{Sheela, a loan client in India, also works as a community health leader to educate women in her community.}

Empowering women as leaders in their community

By building on the base of existing small loan clients, Opportunity's health program focuses on training local women to become Health Leaders in their communities, allowing them to spread life-saving knowledge focused on prevention and care while earning an income to support their families.

One of these women is Anjana, a Health Leader in the Patna district of Bihar – one of the poorest states in India, where half of the state lives below the poverty line. She grew up in a family of seven and finished year 12, as her family always promoted the value of education. However, at the age of 18, her parents arranged to have her married, and her life changed drastically as she became the primary care-giver of their three children and mainly attended to house duties.

Despite pressure from her husband’s family to dissuade her from continuing her studies, Anjana eventually got a job working in the community. She now works as a Health Leader with one of Opportunity’s local partners, facilitating teleconsultations, which is beneficial for women as they don’t need to travel long distances for routine check-ups. She also gets a stipend and makes additional income selling sanitary pads and essential medicines to women in the community.

“I feel fantastic after taking up the job. The program is a blessing for society. People listen to all the details about health and hygiene with interest as no one wants to fall sick,” says Anjana.

With the money she earns from her role, Anjana is sending her children to a low-cost, non-state school and hopes they’ll continue their education.

Improving health at a local level through community of practice

In October 2022, Opportunity launched a learning series which formed a Community of Practice (COP) of more than 20 microfinance partners across four countries. The organisations involved all serve the community through delivering microfinance and financial services, with cross-cutting health programs, collectively serving over 30 million women across Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Nepal.

Hosted on Zoom, the COP facilitates knowledge sharing and open discussion of challenges faced, allowing our partners to learn from other mission-aligned organisations providing community health interventions.

Morseda Chowdhury, Director of BRAC’s Health Nutrition and Population Programme (HNPP), joined and presented at one of the COP, to share learnings from BRAC’s health programs. “BRAC has had many learnings over five decades. There are lots of successes, and failures as well. And I believe that failures are sometimes the best learnings, because from there, we know how to move forward,” says Morseda of BRAC’s experiences in delivering community health education programs.

_{Annie Wang, Opportunity's Health and Women's Safety Director, with Morseda Chowdhury (BRAC).}

Thanks to support received in 2022, we're reaching 1,001,635 families with health programs in India, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Learn more about our impact here.

This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).