Society for Community Health Awareness, Research and Action (SOCHARA)
[This post, by Naveen Thomas, was originally published in June of 2005]
In January 1984, a group of doctors and other professionals who left their jobs in mainstream medical colleges started a community health study-reflection and action group in Bangalore, South India. Community Health Cell (CHC) which grew out of this group, was supported by the Centre for Non-Formal and Continuing Education, Bangalore, till 1990. In June 1990, the project was reviewed and the Society for Community Health Awareness, Research and Action (SOCHARA) was established and registered. Community Health Cell became its functional unit.
As the name suggests, the main aim of SOCHARA was to promote community health awareness, action and research. SOCHARA’s mandate also included evolving educational strategies in Community Health and Development. SOCHARA recognised the need to dialogue and participate with policy makers and implementers to enable the formulation and implementation of community oriented health policies. As a part of efforts to promote community health, SOCHARA also established a library, documentation and interactive information center in Community Health.
SOCHARA consists of 32 members who are distinguished in their own areas of work. CHC, the functional unit of SOCHARA consists of a small core team of 20-25 people, including health and social science professionals, office and library team, research and training assistants, supported by a large informal network of professional associates and friends. The strength of SOCHARA has been its wide network leading to a rich and diverse web of interaction among persons and groups involved in Community Health in India and across the globe.
SOCHARA/CHC have been involved in participatory community health training at middle and grassroots level, primarily with voluntary agencies in South India. On the medical education front, CHC collaborated with the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka to reorient the vision and mission of medical colleges, to improve their management and to introduce medical ethics, rational drug education and other socially relevant topics in the medical curriculum. In addition, SOCHARA/ CHC were also involved in research on strategies for social relevance and community orientation of Medical Education and follow up initiatives with colleges and universities.
Promotion and awareness building concerning rational drug prescribing, rational drug policy, patents and alternative systems of medicine is another area of SOCHARA/ CHC’s functioning. SOCHARA/ CHC also took an active part in the recent Global Campaign against Indian Patents Amendment (GCAIPA).
SOCHARA/CHC has been providing active support to research and awareness building on environmental health issues including mining, Bhopal gas disaster, etc. The other disasters that SOCHARA/ CHC has been actively involved in facilitating relief and rehabilitation efforts include the Bangladesh cyclone disaster, Uttarkashi, Marathwada and Kutch earthquakes and Tsunami in Southern India.
Over the past two decades, SOCHARA/CHC have been motivating and guiding young professionals who were in the process of reflecting about their personal interest or commitment to community health. They spent 3 – 12 months in CHC where they went through a learning process that was person-centred, with peer support, short assignments, self-study, presentations, writing of reports, etc. Today, over 95% of the professionals continue to work in the area of community health.
A review of SOCHARA/CHC in 1998 and subsequent reviews suggested that CHC expand its training and mentoring role. As a result, a Community Health Fellowship Scheme commenced in April 2003, providing an opportunity for young professionals to learn about community health and its various options by involving themselves in a person-centred, semi-structured training programme. This role of SOCHARA/ CHC is being further consolidated, and CHC is evolving into a research and educational centre in community health, public health and health policy.
The other area in which SOCHARA/CHC has been greatly involved is in building a people’s movement in health. The SOCHARA/ CHC review had also suggested that CHC utilize its network and relationships built over the years to contribute to a mass movement in health. This came true in 2000 A.D., with the Indian Health Assembly held in Calcutta, India and the first People’s Health Assembly (PHA-1) being held in Savar, Bangladesh in December 2000. CHC contributed in mobilizing people and organisations, and in conducting both these assemblies. CHC was also deeply involved in the formation of the People’s Health Movement (PHM) and in drafting of the People’s Charter for Health.
In 2002 two years after the first PHA, PHM secretariat was shifted from GK, Savar to the PHM India region, and CHC was asked to host it on behalf of region. Ravi Narayan is currently the co-ordinator of the PHM Secretariat (Global) based at CHC, Bangalore. The People’s Health Movement has come a long way, and five years after its formation, is getting ready to host the second People’s Health Assembly (PHA-2) at Cuenca, Ecuador in July 2005.
To know more about SOCHARA/CHC, get in touch with us, or email Thelma Narayan, the co-ordinator of CHC.
Naveen I. Thomas, Health Policy Fellow, CHC (June 2005)
‘A Nation of Civilized People’
The women of Morocco are struggling to find a freedom for themselves and their country, as all peoples of a civilized society are trying to do in this world today. One of the most important aspects of creating a civilized society or its communities of trust, and interactive stature’s the rhetoric that goes behind the ideals of a great society, that’s found to be created by the communities of a lasting, and pervasive nature. The ideals of a great society that are found to be created by an intuitive and civilized culture, or its communities of lasting and pervasive stature that are amassed by the awareness of an ideological, or communicative form of government; or the skills of an intelligent learning which allows all beings to be brought closer to an established form of rhetoric or a society of intuitively educated and democratic people. All things in nature have balance. All things in nature have destiny. The human constitution’s based upon honesty, and is not above nature’s law. The human constitution’s like a dimension. The personality is like a perspective. The human constitution, and personality are traveling to a point; and then back from that point gathering and reflecting opinions. The constitution, and human personality will gather and reflect any opinion subrisive or insubrisive that may be given to it in a theoretical orientated world. The human personality, and constitution are destined by their own destiny, and nurtured by love. Together, they’re traveling to a point; and then back from that point gathering and reflecting any opinions that may be given in a theoretical world. The balance of civilization’s drawn upon these statures of trust, and interactive learning that are the ideals of a lasting, and humanitarian freedom that’s created from the harmony of a compliant, and idealized society. A culture of civilized trust and learning that’s based upon the principles of a lasting, and idealized society that are to be created from a harmonious understanding that’s to be found in the world today. But first we have to apply these concepts of intuitive trust, and learning in order to watch them grow with the success of a worldly fruitfulness, and harmony in the world today.
Best of luck!