Your impact
through health

Health Report – October 2018 (data to June 2018)

To June 2018, 4,236 women have been trained as health leaders. These women are reaching families in their communities with simple but life-changing health, hygiene and nutrition information to build healthier communities.

INDIA: HEALTH LIVELIHOODS

215 health leaders are completing further training to become Community Health Entrepreneurs. The health entrepreneur pilot aims to equip health leaders with high-demand but hard to access health products – including sanitary napkins, hand wash, dishwashing liquid and toilet cleaner. Behind the scenes, this means bridging the last mile in supply chains to create local access to vital health products, in quantities families can afford. In time, health entrepreneurs will not only teach families about better health and hygiene, but make sure they can access the products they need to put this new knowledge in to practice.

Basic Care Providers are health leaders trained in first-response emergency care. Having completed the training – using a curriculum designed in collaboration with Stanford University – these 53 health leaders are actively assisting families in their community. So far 1,530 people have consulted a Basic Care Provider, who can use her tablet application to access remote medical care including prescriptions of basic medicines.

INDONESIA'S FIRST HEALTH LEADERS TO REACH FAMILIES

The first group of health leaders in Indonesia will soon complete their training. These 54 women are eager to begin reaching out to families in their communities to teach them better health, hygiene and nutrition.  

Health Report – March 2019 (data to December 2018)

To December 2018, 4,339 women have been trained as health leaders in Asia. These women are reaching families in their communities with simple but life-changing health, hygiene and nutrition information to build healthier communities.

INDIA: PAVING PATHWAYS TO HEALTH LIVELIHOODS

Our two livelihoods pilots – Basic Care Providers as first-responders, and Health Entrepreneurs to distribute vital health products – are continuing with ongoing refinement through lessons learnt. To December 2018, 215 health leaders are participating in the Health Entrepreneur pilot and 53 as Basic Care Providers.

INDONESIA: PUTTING KNOWLEDGE IN TO PRACTICE

Having completed their six-months training, our first cohort of health leaders in Indonesia have begun their six-month internships. So far they’ve reached 13,500 families with health knowledge and hygiene practices. As anticipated, the pilot has delivered key lessons in adapting the health leader model to best reach families in Indonesia.

Three months in to their internships, a common challenge so far is the lack of resources families have to implement what they’ve learnt. This challenge is shared with families in India – a key motivation for exploring our Health Entrepreneur pilot, to equip health leaders to be local distribution channels for essential products like sanitary napkins.

Meet Navihan

On first glance, Navihan Nisha seems like a quiet lady. Covered from head to toe in a pale blue salwar kameez and a white head cloth embroidered in dainty flowers, my first impression is that she's reserved, demure even. When we begin chatting, her son and daughter - both grown up now - sit nearby, as do a crowd of twenty other people from the village. Navihan Nisha speaks softly and carefully, pondering her answers before she gives them. She carries a small notebook in which she has prepared notes for the two of us to discuss, and after a few minutes I quickly realise my first impression is wrong: she is determined and defiant, respected by everyone in the village.

When Navihan Nisha lost her husband ten years ago, she struggled to raise her young children and keep her family afloat. She borrowed from a money-lender to make ends meet, but couldn't repay the exorbitant interest she was being charged. Finally, Opportunity's program partner Cashpor opened a branch in nearby Deoria, she took a loan to start a small roadside shop and has been running that ever since while also earning income from the family's small farm.

In her small village of about 200 households, health issues are commonly caused by high rates of open defecation and poor quality water - leading to illnesses like typhoid and diarrhoea. One day when her Loan Officer came to collect her repayment, she was invited to train as a health leader with Opportunity's program partner Healing Fields Foundation.

At first, Navihan Nisha went along to the classes out of curiosity, but she soon started to find the lessons useful for her own family. When she learned about the importance of washing hands as a tool for minimising illnesses like diarrhoea, it was a revelation. Her own family began washing their hands and she noticed that they were healthier overall.

Soon Navihan Nisha was ready to begin educating other community members with the important health knowledge she'd learned. But she noticed that many failed to adopt the seemingly simple practice of washing their hands. Undeterred, Navihan Nisha decided to turn her attention to a group of 60 children who participated in homework coaching after school. She would sometimes help the children, and as part of her lessons, she started encouraging them to wash their hands and to share the message with their own families, knowing just how much this easy solution could help reduce preventable illnesses.

As the children learned, Navihan Nisha saw another opportunity to change minds. Once a month, on a Thursday, she and the children would walk through the village singing, chanting and doing hand-washing demonstrations. At first, people laughed. But then, they started paying attention.

Now, Navihan Nisha is considered a true leader in her community, and people living there have become healthier. She is proud that her community is a clean place where families are healthy, and hopes to continue educating those around her with important messages about their health.

Operational sustainability is the ability of an organisation to cover the costs of its lending program with the revenue earned from its lending program. 

Portfolio at risk is a stringent measure of a microfinance institution’s loan portfolio quality. The portfolio at risk calculates the total value of outstanding loan balances for loans, for every payment that is overdue by more than 30 days.

Meet Sunita

Sunita is from a small village in a rural area of Uttar Pradesh, India, where she lives with her husband of 18 years and their five children – as well as her brother-in-law, his wife and their three children. She earns an income through the family's buffalo and her small tailoring business, which she started several years ago with a loan from Opportunity's program partner Cashpor.

When Sunita heard about the health leader program she was eager to join. Attending classes meant battling her husband’s disapproval –until her new knowledge saved his life.

A seasonal labourer, Sunita’s husband Subash often works away for months at a time.

Luckily for Subash, Sunita had been attending classes under the guise of visiting friends.

When he returned from working away with a badly infected ulcer on his leg she knew he needed to get to a hospital immediately. After seven days in hospital, Sunita knew how to dress his wound and took care of Subash for the next three months. Without her training the family don’t know how they would have covered the cost of his care.

Now, Subash is Sunita's biggest supporter. He is proud of her role in their community

Sunita is grateful to have had the chance to learn about basic health, hygiene and nutrition, and to share this with her family and community. Without these skills, her husband might not be around today.

Meet Sashikala

Sashikala is a health leader and mother to three daughters. The family has a small farm, that they've grown over the years with small loans to invest in buffalo and seeds for vegetables. Most of their food comes from the farm, and they sell what remains at the markets, and live off the small income.

She's seen many children die from preventable illnesses including diarrhoea. She's also seen a number of adults in the village suffer from tuberculosis.

Sashikala's family is one of just five households with a toilet, in a community of around 2,500 people. She and her husband built it because they worried about their daughters going outside at night, and were also concerned about their young children being bitten by a snake during the rainy season.

When Sashikala heard about the training being offered through Opportunity's program partner Healing Fields Foundation, she put up her hand immediately to become a health leader. She has focused on encouraging families to build toilets and sells sanitary napkins to the community.

When Sashikala completed school, she wanted to become a nurse, but was unable to get the further education needed to qualify. Now, as a health leader, she is proud to help others improve their wellbeing. Her eldest daughter Schweta wants to be a midwife, inspired by her mum.