Health & Sanitation

Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project\r\n(TNHSP)

Providing healthcare services at any form to the rural areas is extremely useful for the rural communities. One among the important services is mortuary van services. Using mortuary van service is unaffordable for the rural poor to handle the dead bodies. Over the years we realize the need of the rural communities and applied for the project with Health Department, Government of Tamil Nadu. The mortuary van services were awarded to us after evaluating our quality work in health and sanitation in watershed development work and other project activities all over Tamil Nadu. We are successfully running a mortuary service in district headquarters Hospital at Dindigul through Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project (TNHSP). We are charging very low affordable cost just to manage the system. People are benefiting from our services especially the poor rural and urban communities.

Health and HIV/AIDS

The changing estimates of people living with HIV in India and state and statistical data on risk behaviour and other prevention indicators perhaps show progress in facing HIV/AIDS. Hopefully we have reached a stage when we are on the last leg of the war against HIV/AIDS. In order to mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS in all our watershed training programmes there is a separate awareness session for basic facts on HIV/AIDS, ways of spreading the virus, methods of prevention, treatment aspects and stigma discrimination are explained to the participants in all 534 Panchayats we worked .Individual cases of HIV infections are referred to VCTC and care support facilities.

While some of us at Coodu Trust have been involved at a field level in research studies on HIV/AIDS prevention, mapping and needs assessments and two of us have the credit of several firsts in HIV related research, evaluation and motivating prevention, care and support efforts in the country. One of us also have the advantage of learning hands on experience from an application of peer driven model of reaching hidden groups in a city outside the state of Tamil Nadu. We have a PhD scholar among us whose doctoral thesis is on Human Rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) in Tamil Nadu. We as an organization did all our health and HIV/AIDS awareness as part of our other project activities.

Coodu Health Centre

Realizing the need for healthcare and other support services we are running a health centre namely Coodu Health Centre at Mylampatty, Karur district. In this health centre we are providing integrated services like medical, paramedical, counselling, psycho social support and care & support services to different target communities. Family counselling services specifically deals with the cases related to women victims of dowry, separated, widowed and deserted are given. Premarital, post marital and re-union counselling services are provided in this centre. De-addiction is another important issue being addressed by Coodu Trust. Coodu Trust conducts awareness programmes and providing community-based services for the identification, treatment and rehabilitation of addicts. All the services in de-addiction like assessment of the extent of the problem, preventive action to counteract addiction dissemination of information, education and medical treatment to the identified addicts were given. Older persons who left alone need physical, psychological, social and spiritual supports besides their basic needs. The disadvantaged and needy older people stay at our centre to avail the basic services. They were given food and accommodation for free of cost and all support services are provided to them. Enabling people with disabilities to enjoy their rights is another vital task for Coodu Trust. For the benefit of disabilities, services like Community Based Rehabilitation and psycho social support like counseling and career guidance are given at our health centre. As our organisation formed and managed hundreds of SHGs in various districts, special emphasis is given to include person with disability in the new group formation.At our health centre, trafficked victims are given psycho social support, medical, education and legal support. Overall the health centre act as a rehabilitation centre for the PLHAs, addicts, aged, destitute women, disabled, child infected and affected and victims of trafficking. Currently we are managing all the above activities with our own funding sources and donations. Separate programmes are being formulated to specifically address the problems of the different target groups availing the services at our health centre

Experience in working with migrants

The Department of Adi Dravida and Tribal Welfare, Karur has assigned to undertake re-survey of Bonded Laborers in Karur Dist to Coodu Trust. We have undertaken the survey in all the eight blocks of Karur District. The information about the various work forces and work places were collected through various sources in all the 8 blocks of Karur district. Basic information on different type of labourers, various types of business activities and work sites were collected from various government officials, Block Development Officers, Panchayat leaders and elected representatives in various Panchayats of Karur District. Information on labourers and addresses of various companies and units were collected from Karur Exporters Association, Karur Dyeing Units Federation, Karur Handloom and Weaving Association, Bus Body Builders Association and Quarry Association. The owners, managers, supervisors and staffs of these work places provide vital information on labourers working in various places in Karur District. The survey was conducted in the above mentioned units by using interview schedules on one to one basis. In some sensitive and hidden areas snow ball technique has adopted to identify the bonded labourers. The survey was conducted by covering various potential Panchayats were labourers and bonded labourers were working. The concerned Panchayat leaders were asked to provide information on bonded labourers in their respective Panchayat area and Supportive documents from the Panchayat leaders were collected.