(On 28th Sep 2018,  I facilitated a one-day session on use of SALT and Community life competence process in development and M&E . NILERD -National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (An Autonomous Institute under NITI Aayog, Government of India) organises M&E course for foreign professionals every year in Delhi, India. Here is a short summary of the discussion we had on our ‘common humanity’ and what it means in context of our work with people. This is part II…

On 28th Sep 2018,  I facilitated a one-day session on use of SALT and Community life competence process in development and M&E . NILERD -National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (An Autonomous Institute under NITI Aayog, Government of India) organises M&E course for foreign professionals every year in Delhi, India. Here is a short summary of the discussion we had on our ‘common humanity’ and what it means in context of our work with people. This is part I of…

Recently, we facilitated an introductory session with 11 girls aged 17-19 years who attend after-school English and computer classes at Saathi Centre, Institute of Social Studies Trust in Delhi, India. Ivanka, Kanika and Sneha were my co-facilitators. The project aims to build an enabling environment for the girls in a neighbourhood in Delhi. We are at step one of Community life competence process- Who are we? We began with a SALT meeting…

Constellation worked with NGO Mamta in Healthrise project on diabetes and hypertension funded by Medtronic Foundation and supported by Abt Associates. SALT and CLCP were used as a pilot in 14 villages in two blocks of Shimal district, State of Himachal, India. Nuggets from Shimla Knowledge Fair…

Lalit Sharma is  working with Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) for healthrise program supported by ABT associates and funded by Medtronic philanthropy.Through SALT and CLCP, the programs is  trying to motivate patients to respond to hypertension and diabetes. He has written his experience in facilitating SALT visits in CLCP in Patient Support Group in village- Bhandimagri, Girwa Block. He did SALT visits with patients and stakeholders.)…

Knowledge Fair on 10^th August 2018 at Udaipur, India demonstrated why should we hold a knowledge fair of communities who are taking action for their issues.

This was under Catholic Health…

We are using SALT and CLCP with Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) team for a patient-centred approach to diabetes and Hypertension through setting up of Patient Support Groups (PSG).

On 24th July, we had gone for a SALT visit to appreciate the actions the PSG of village Namli, Jhadhol block, Udaipur (India) has been taking. I asked them what are they proud of. The patients said that they have started taking medication regularly. The local health workers were able to…

For a practitioner of SALT and CLCP, our work does not finish with facilitating action plan, accompaniment of the community in taking action is critical. This is my learning in our Assam project in India where we are stimulating community response to immunization, WASH and nutrition.

In Hirajani community, water supply is a major issue and the community is getting frustrated as in spite of a lot of effort and applications to the government they have not been able to…

Background: Under the HealthRise project, Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) is facilitating SALT and community life competence process for strengthening patient centred approach in the state of Rajasthan, India. As part of this project, the CHAI team has set up patient support groups and we are using SALT so that the groups can own the issue of diabetes and hypertension and take action. Technical inputs: Dr Sameer and story credit: Asha, Brinda and Sharad.

I want …

If I were to rate the most powerful moments of my work with communities, then Knowledge Fair in Assam would stand out. It was messy, confusing at times but very enriching and a delight to one who believes that communities can do things for themselves. In Assam, for the past one year we have been working in 90 villages in 3 districts with two organisations- VHAA and CNES. During the Knowledge fair we organised four events in April end. We did one event each in the three districts and the…

(This blog is by Asha Meghwal, Outreach worker, Block Jhadol from Medtronic Foundation funded, Abt Associates supported and implemented by Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI) in Udaipur, India. The HealthRise project is using SALT and CLCP for patient centred approach to Diabetes and hypertension. Asha is a SALT facilitator whose blog I translated into English. Asha is very strong in documentation. Thank you Asha for sharing! Photo courtesy Asha who is sitting on the left…

(I had the privilege to talk to Gloria, Acting chief information, Education and Communication and Chanana, information, Education and Communication both from National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA), Botswana Government. Here is a note from our conversation. It was held in Entebbe October 2017. Kudos to NACA and Botswana Government have recognised the critical role of communities for an effective response to HIV and have taken a bottoms up, strength-based…

Background: In 2015, 3ie supported Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and Constellation to carry out a rigorous evaluation of the effectiveness of the Stimulate, Appreciate, Listen and Transfer (SALT) and community life competence process in 3 districts of Assam, India. 

In every village, there is an ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) who is responsible for creating…

This story is after a discussion with my team mate from Ruchira Neog , Voluntary Health Association of Assam (VHAA). I have also had discussion on this with my Bongaigaon and Udalguri teams.

Often I am asked why we have not focused on 'mothers' in our immunization project in Assam. Why have we engaged the family and the whole village. With 11 months of work, I reflect on this aspect of mothers vs family approach.

We invite every segment…

Siobhan Marsh, a young professional from Generate Worldwide and based in Melbourne was visiting India with her students. She invited me to speak to her students on – how can young people engage mindfully in community building and development. For me this was a SALT visit to the group of youth about 16-18 years of age. I was not the expert. What could I do to learn from them and they could learn from each other?…

In current times, we use technology to remind us - our phones, google calendar and so on. In our project on immunization in Assam in a tiny village, people wanted to remember the date of next vaccination schedule of their babies. What did they do? Read on...

In Village Silamahikhati (Kamrup Rural) where facilitator VHAA- Deepak Nath…

Vanessa Moorghen, Mauritius shared this experience with me during the Global Learning Festival in 2016

I work with Chrysalide, a rehabilitation centre for women who use drugs and alcohol.

From the beginning of Chrysalide in 2004 we structured the centre in a way that a person coming for admission should start her therapy the day after joining. This means that the new resident has to immediately take on the responsibilities at the centre including therapy, participating…

Let's go to Northeastern part of my country, India. A remote, beautiful village with paddy fields, surrounded by hills- Tinkonia Part one, Bongaigaon, Assam. This is the location of my story where we are working on immunization.

For the past three months our CNES team has been doing home visits in this community. On 5th June, we gathered different sub-groups in the community to discuss what is their dream for healthy children in the village.

Then next day on 6th June about 40…

Local response- in the Constellation we define a local response (am citing Philip Forth from our blended learning programme)- A community can take action to deal with a challenge that it faces. These actions form a 'Local Response'. They contrast with a solution imposed on a community by experts from outside the community.Last week, Phil took us for a SALT visit in his town Ilkely, United Kingdom. Here is what I observed on the local response. 

15^th May…

This blog describes what the visiting team learned from SALT visit to appreciate SAATHI community centre of Institute of Social Studies Trust, Delhi and the response of the host community to the SALT visit. Blog has been jointly compiled with Markus and Amita and inputs from Sudipta and Ragini. There is a short After Experience Reflection by the SALT team.…