What a excellent and rewarding trip Himachal Pradesh, a place called “Land of the Gods”. It’s truly a home to so many temples, it’s natural beauty and host to Dalai Lama.
Team of seven eksangh members started on a 27 hours train journey on September 18th from Ahmadabad, arriving Pathankot Cant on 19th afternoon.
We stayed in a small village named, Sarthi Gram which is 5 km from Nurpur, district of Kangra.
There are 52 panchayats in Nurpur area. There are as many as 10-12 wards in each panchayat. Hope Foundation covers 12 panchayats which is 105 villages and approx. 20,000 people.
We visited 14 villages and 1 nursing school, reaching out to as many as 1800- 2000 women and men.
It’s going to be 2 years since eksangh has started and I can say from our experience that we have come across many different kinds of women. It may be quite surprising for you to learn that women who live in the rural areas are far more open minded and willing to learn than the women of urban areas. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Himachal women but some how I had a gut feeling that they will be glad to see us. Learning a bit about the local women that they will be shy and may be not wanting to listen and I can really understand as the western influence hasn’t touched too much yet! But the gut feeling was good and I can say they were the best audience we have had in terms of quietly absorbing information presented, wanting to eagerly learn how to do self breast exam and willingly get a clinical breast exam done by a nurse. I could not ask for anything more! Every day was a better day, we were energetic from day one to last.
First time ever we had a excellent set-up on how the entire cancer awareness should flow when we visit the villages.
1) It had started by a intro of eksangh by Foundation’s village coordinator in their Pahadi/Punabi language.
2) Intro of play and it’s content by our play director, Jimeshbhai
3) Play in Hindi on Breast & Oral Cancer – all
5) share a few words about cancer – jayshri
4) After play – hands on breast dummies, feel and learn how to do breast exam – Parulben Gandhi/Tejalben, Aniatben/Trushaben, Jayshri
5) simultaneously, clinical breast exam done by nurses, shardaben and shankutalaben.*
**On this trip the entire group of eksangh women had a learning experience from handling breast dummies and learning breast examination under guidance of Shardaben.
Eksangh Team for Himachal Trip
Parulben Gandhi – Nursing principal
Tejalben Shah – Student Tutor
Jimeshbhai Shah – Sanskrit Teacher/ Play Director/Trainer
Sharadaben Rana – Matron & Nurse
Dr. Anitaben Patel – Professor at Commerce & Arts College
Trushaben Thakkar – Student Tutor
Shankutakaben Raval – Nurse
Jayshri Rami – eksangh founder
Awareness Is Empowering! 