Last week in Delhi

Our last clinic with Asha was held at Myopuri slum which was one of the grimmest places you could imagine. It is locAted along a busy railway line where trains pass through every 30 minutes 24/7 causing a huge safety risk for young children as well as noise and dust.

The slum is also adjacent to a huge breakers yard where men work with no safety equipment in filthy conditions and polluted air that is thick with burning rubber and dust.

A thick layer of mud covers the ground . This turns to a quagmire of mud and filth in the rainy season which means that people have take off their sandals and wade through knee deep in order to get out of the slum.

Despite these difficulties the slum dwellers keep themselves so clean. The Asha community health volunteers Are incredibly proud of their achievements. They have a 95% child vaccination rate, have campaigned to get water delivered by tanker and public toilets installed and a number of the young people are going through university. 

This CHV has worked with Asha for the last 20 years and has real hope for the next generation. She herself has had such a hard life with her daughter losing both legs under a train when she was just 8 years old. Despite this she us cheerful and optimistic. The CHVs also told us about their experiences when get go back to their home villages and women are astonished that they can go out of their houses and don't have to cover heir faces. Things are slowly changing in India and they really see themselves as empowered to help bring this about- wonderful!

We have now said our goodbyes to Asha after giving them our feedback. We really have had such an amazing time with them and will certainly continue to support them in the future. I have promised to do some midwifery training for the CHVs in the future and Steve is going to create some information for diabetic patients as this is really needed. We know we will be returning at dine point.