Congratulations Haneef!

For, those of you how know Haneef, bingo; you know who I am going to talk of! Haneef Lakdawala, is the head of an NGO Sanchetna (I mentioned here albeit in a different context) in Ahmedabad. If it still did not click, Haneef is the winner of the CNN-IBN Relience Real Heroes Award. When I was watching the award function on television a few days back, I jumped with joy, and found myself telling my dad like a small kid, “I know him, he is Mr. Haneef dad, I met him just last month while I was visiting his organization for work!”

He was just Haneef to me when I met him. I have traveled excessively on account of work, visited so many NGOs and met so many people. And then, he was just another person that I was bound that I was bound to forget. But this was different – today, to me, he is somebody more than the man who runs Sanchetna. It is different since his work has today reached every household in the country, thanks to the well deserved accolades he won at the award function. Having been felicitated like that, mind you, is something!

I thought I’d write more about Haneef and the organization that he runs – Sanchetna – one of the respected NGOs in Ahmedabad. Sanchetna, is a small organization that works in riot hit parts of Ahmedabad. For those who are uninformed; after the 2002 riots, when homes were reduced to ashes and people lived in fear without a home or an iota of hope they formed new colonies – illegal slums! These slums were new then, just land on the outskirts of Ahmedabad – no public facilities were available, no doctors with probably only charlatans at their disposal, with their ration cards cindered – no food security – in fact they were no longer legal citizens! Then builders came in, built small homes and rented it to them – a debt! And mind you, this was the story on both the sides. Haneef works in such riot hit slums and through his community workers he helps them get public health facilities that they are entitled to. And for communal harmony – Hindu Muslim cricket clubs!

For sanguine seekers like me, Haneef is a hope in an otherwise depressing, often frustrating field of Development. A hope that ones work is recognized. A hope that there is now one organization less that will say ‘perpetual penury mam’. A hope tomorrow will be better in spite of the odds – somewhere. My rationale for this – seeing Haneef receive the prize, made me believe that the award was actually given out to those that deserve. And when I saw the other awardees my belief in the sincerity of the CNN-IBN’s efforts amplified. And for this I salute, both to the awardees and to CNN-IBN. Somewhere at the back of my mind I can hear Martin Luther King:

“If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But whatever you do, keep on moving towards your goal.”

Here are some photographs of my visit

Haneef talking to Dan and Beth from the Gates Foundation

Haneef with his team - Sanchetna

Bombay Hotel Slum

And then I remember what we used to recite (or rather forced to…) in school
Little drops of water
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land
W H Longfellow

Odds and Ends

The world of DEVELOPMENT can get confusing at times. With so much happening at the peripheries, it sometimes takes a lot of you to just sit down and note a remarkable day. The plethora of these 'happenings' never cease to give you new insights, especially if you are the one working for the development at those margins where even a small change matters. At times you turn a blind eye to most things since you are often in the same rut.

Being the last remnant of the Urban Health Project I was to accompany my Professors while they entertained Dan and Beth, visitors from Gates Foundation on the 18th of this month. We had chalked out a visit to the Urban Health Center (UHC) and then to a slum in Ahmedabad called Bombay Hotel Slum where an NGO called Sanchetna. After this we planned to visit the Deputy Commissioner Health.

I will take you through the day some other time, but as a Medical Anthropologist (or at least someone who hopes to be one), there were some very important learnings that I carried back with me. And I fear to loose them if I don't pen them down.

Dan informed me that the Gates Foundation is to fund for Safe Motherhood Programs in India. And as we were talking he revealed that usually there are two types of models that you see in the field, one is the public private partnership model like the Chiranjeevi Scheme in Gujarat, the other is the most common grass root model of community mobilization. Now as donors the first model is more cost effective. Now this I realized is donor's perspective. He was right in some ways about the broad two models that exist in the field. But the donor's perspective I realized is an important learning when you have to market ideas. And since I am working on health policies, I know how important it is to sell ideas, and sell it well.

I kept thinking on this donor's perspective. And later discussed it with my Prof. I was relating to Deborah Maine 's talk in the institute on "Bridges of Paper Bridges of Steel" where she is of the opinion to build as many EmOC centers in the country to mobilize women directly to these service centers - her argument - instead of pushing women the rote way - from mid-levels to PHC's to CHC's to EmOC's 'why not get them directly to the EmOc's?'. That is really a point put forward well. The question I asked my Prof. was "How many donors are buying this idea?" Here is what he said, to quote him "Not many, you see donors also have their own agenda, their own philosophy. For e.g. UNICEF always looks at community participation. They believe in community mobilization. So they will never buy this idea." Yes, I had to agree to that. For instance children are UNICEF's bread and butter, UNFPA will always talk of gender perspectives etc. And yes, since I did my internship with UNICEF India, I have to agree with him when he says that UNICEF believes in community participation since it is at the crux of almost all their programs and projects.

What now happens at various peripheries is that programs become donor centric - you have either a community based model or a 'building model' (as I like to call it!) - since the implementers are funded by donors who are believers of one of the two broad models. The problem with the implementers is that most of them rely only on one donor. Here is something that most of us HAVE to agree, whether we like it or not - 'implementation TERRITORIES'.

Most commoners I meet talk about the way things function in the country, throw brickbats - not really knowing what hits us really. There is no dearth of ideas for sure... but with so many things affecting the odds and ends that really matter.....

BANG! need I tell more?

This happens only in India!

I am not supposed to really give you this kind of 'classified' information. But sometimes I really wonder if anyone reads this blog. But anyways, one day if at all I become this renowned researcher that I aim to be, this will help me keep a track of things, of everything I ever heard in the zillion meetings that I attended.

So, here is the Golden Knot!

Now all know that the World Bank funds a number of projects in a number of countries. To fund any project in any country, the norm is that the country submits a proposal on the basis of which funds are allocated.

Now, for some work, my Professor was looking for a proposal that the Government of India had submitted to the World Bank for funds. And, it is not traceable at both the ends! God, imagine that! And considering I know my Prof. well. I know he would not have said that unless he would have tried all known sources.

I imagine it is there somewhere in some stack that probably looks like this:

Caution: You may take this with a pinch of salt if you wish!

Will this ever happen in India?

I'm a bit late with this post, but never mind...

Here is a list of articles that I found in one of the leading Journal in medicine "The Lancet" has published

1. The Democrats' turn to lead.
- Published in 2006, the paper talks of the Democrats Health care initiatives such as offering tax credits and about the negotiations of drug prices with pharmaceutical companies etc.

2. Democratic victory could fire up health policy debates
- Published in 2006, the paper talks of issues the author hopes will be addressed by the U. S Congress like the expansion of stem cell research, pharmaceutical drug pricing, and health information technology.

I wonder, when we will ever have such debates and discussions? All we do during election season is talk about "Modi's diversionary politics", "Sonia Gandhi accused Modi..." and the likes.

Thankfully people do write about this too

3. India's health sector responds to new corruption charges

- Published in 2008, the article discusses how a World Bank investigation uncovered fraud and corruption in five of its Indian health projects. The World Bank found that many of the corrupt practices were related to procurement and included bid-rigging, bid manipulation, and bribery. Action taken was that GOI will now include the UN Office for Project Services for procurement for World Bank-funded health projects and a promise to strengthen transparency through the Right to Information Act.

Alas, the authors are not Indian's! (Let me point out here that I have not read the 3rd article completely, since the paper is not yet online. But that does not matter now. )

Though the third article is no big news (for most Indians and me, especially since I have a had long discussions on the disappearance of IFA tablets during RCH I), the point still remains: there are people out there who care about these things.

However, 'mundane' these issues might be, the erudite world still bothers. During the RCH I, everybody in the health sector spoke of the unavailability of the IFA tablets, but nobody, mind you, nobody bothered to write even a page on it (not that I know of at least). Alas!

And in the research world, people crib - "We don't have enough publications!"

Are we lazy?

No. I think not. We just dont know that every small issue is a matter important enough to be published and discussed.

Struggling to find time

All the time in the world and not a nanosecond to spare!

I've been working even on weekends since the last two weeks, analysing (or at least trying to analyse) data. Alas, the data is not as simple as one would think. Numbers are easy to analyse, but words...? I have been trying to analyse some interviews, and you have to trust me when I say that it is no simple undemanding task. These interviews lasted for an average of an hour and half which means the transcripts and an average 25 pages long. Reading one transcript (sincerely and critically) takes an average two hours. But analysing such 7 transcripts? Phew...

Tell me tell you what analysing means. Analysing reading and re-reading the transcripts thoroughly, putting the issues raised in several boxes, shifting to and fro between each respondent on each of the topics, then re-reading it all again so that you do not miss out an important link, then start writing (typing) each of these neatly.

And once you write, the Prof will say; "How about looking at the issue in this way". Huh?

All the weeks work goes down the drain.

Thank God, he gave man the brains to invent the Computer. Thank God someone had the brains to come up with WORD. And above all, thank God someone came up with QSR7 Nvivo! Else where would I be.... finding my way in the labyrinth of data!