A story of STIMULATE IMMEDIATE ACTION "SALT" District Dhamtari Chhattisgarh India.

[Vishnu Gupta]

Hello Everyone! 

I am Vishnu Gupta Public Health Professional working in State Health Resource Center Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India.

I would like to share my story about "How I was convinced by the impact of SALT" 

                    I discovered SALT during my internship on the HealthRise Project with Mamta-HIMC in Shimla, India.  (see The Constellation report 2018, p.28). I feel that the SALT approach is the best way to empower the community. It is about knowing our inner strengths to empower our self.

                    In October 2018, I joined SHRC and its Mission Statement gave me goals to do something for the community, so I brought the SALT concepts to apply in the community.

                     I would like to share a story from Kekrakholi village in Magarload, Dhamtari District, Chhattisgarh India. In Decmber 2019 Village leader decided to organize a health camp with the help of Block Health team. Mr. Prahlad a village leader who has worked in a village for better health and community engagment. He  invited SHRC for group meeting in a village. I got oppurtunity to go there and I decided to do SALT in a community.  After the NCD (Non Communicable Disease) health check-up camp, we conducted a SALT meeting with a group of people from the village members like Youth group, village leader, SHG (Self Help Group), Few leader from Forest Dept. and patients). Their common dream was to have a tower for mobile phone network in the village to make it easy to transfer and share information. After the SALT session, the group decided to write a letter to the District Collector and after one week a few members went to district Collector office to submit their demand letter. Also regulary they are following for Mobile Tower and Health Camp. Village Common Dream was #Every Month they want to do Health Checkup Camp in a Village and after the first Health Checkup Camp another Camp was organized By village Leader.    “The thing is that SALT can create unity in a group and  STIMULATE IMMEDIATE ACTION."  

[Marie Lamboray]

Thank you, Vishnu,  for sharing the link to the 2018 report !

[Rituu B. Nanda]

This is a great example of community led action. Thanks for sharing