SALT…… A behavioral therapy

[Rekharani Sharma]

This is Nirmala. She is just fifteen years old. She is a school drop out and managed to go to middle school because her village has school upto 8th standard only. Thereafter one needs to go out of the village in nearby taluka place to get higher secondary education. And her father do not have adequate money to send girl child to pursue higher education.
When we met her, she was reserved and shy and was afraid to share her story. But slowly, as we shared our life with her, she opened up. She told us that consumption of tobacco and alcohol is a major problem in the village. Her mother used to consume tobacco earlier. But when HealthRise visited their village in 2018, she attended the SALT meetings. Her mother understood that tobacco consumption is injurious to health and it causes many grave health problems. After learning this, she quit tobacco completely.
We visited her village after more than a year and learned that SALT has stimulated Nirmala’s mother and now she is tobacco free.