A Health Camp was organised for the residents of Nizamuddin Basti on Saturday, 20th February 2010 under the health-care initiative of Blending Spectrum. Blending Spectrum is a project of The YP Foundation that empowers street children by facilitating their access to education, life skills and primary health and hygiene awareness.

Keeping our aim in mind, which is to create health awareness in the community, we brought in two doctors, Dr. Sood and Dr. Malini, who have earlier conducted various camps and are trained first aiders to discuss ‘First Aid’ with the residents of the basti. We had a group of 40 – 50 people who sat for the camp.

Various day-to-day first aid problems (cuts and bruises, bleeding, choking, nose bleeds, fevers, swelling, etc) were discussed in detail. Dr. Sood and Dr. Malini used simple communicating strategies to make their dissemination of information interesting and, more importantly, impactful. For example, they used a dummy to demonstrate the ‘Heimlich Manoeuvre’ for chokes and positioning of limbs during bleeding; charts and white board to emphasise important points; child subjects to exemplify how accidents occur and how they can be dealt with efficiently.

There was a lot of input from the residents regarding remedies, some of which were correct while others were not. All view points were heard and explanations for each were discussed. People were very enthusiastic about getting knowledge of how to treat day-to-day health issues; many posed personal problems which were discussed as examples for the rest of the residents as well.

A major achievement was that the myths regarding certain treatments were cleared. This was a big step forward in enabling efficient self-care within the Nizamuddin Basti.

At the end of the camp, some basic first aid amenities like band-aids, ointments, cotton wool, ORS, paracetamol, etc were distributed amongst the residents. The proper usage of each was explained thoroughly to prevent any misuse. The camp covered basic first aid information and received a positive response form the residents of the basti.

The camp will be followed up by team volunteers who will continue with the health and hygiene education classes that we conduct on location, with an increased focus on motivating and engaging the community and enabling the children to access local affordable basic first aid healthcare services.

Prakhar