Right on in Rajasthan

Today we were in Rajasthan in the small town of Tonk, about 100km south of Jaipur and home to close to 200,000 people. It has a significant Muslim population. I was struck throughout the day with how Save the Children have been able to build strong links with the Islamic religious leaders alongside other community groups. Those links have been instrumental in changing attitudes and traditional practices, improving child health while at the same time respecting religious values. Now isn’t that a critical skill in today’s world?

Everyone has had to work patiently to build these relationships, but now the religious leaders lend their support to some key basic health initiatives. On the other hand, Save the Children have listened to the community and been able to act as their advocates with the government. One practical example of this – many women were giving birth in unsuitable conditions at home because they were likely to have to see male doctors, but after Save the Children’s intervention a woman only hospital is now under construction.

As we saw in Delhi yesterday, the government has seen the success of this approach and wants to use it in all the wards across the city. This is how Save the Children is able to unlock government money to scale up on their successful programmes.

We met with the community group early in the day, and saw women from the community actively involved alongside the religious leaders. Then at a local Anganwadi centre we saw how Save the Children are helping to improve the implementation of the government initiatives for pre-school care and education. The regular measurement and display of results would put most commercial companies to shame, and the volunteers there were justifiably proud of what they are achieving.

The last part of our visit to Tonk was to meet a group of young people who have just been through a Save the Children training programme to make them aware of children’s rights. While the words written in government policy might be good, people in areas like this have not been made aware of what their rights are and what this means for them. This training is intended to help children become more confident, to stand up for themselves and make their own choices about how they will live their lives. It had certainly worked with this group! They were happy, determined and self-confident and they sent us away smiling.