The problem of Malnutrition specifically undernutrition, has been persistent in the rural and tribal areas of for long. The rural women and children are particularly suffering from its adverse health impacts. Also, these are regions that are geographically disadvantaged with villages not having access to adequate health and logistics infrastructure.
In spite of pursuing rapid economic development for more than five decades India since independence the objective of good health and physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing of individuals has not yet been achieved. The prevailing situation of malnutrition, lack of access to health facilities, medical professionals and ignorance to the health of women, children, and the elderly is being experienced by many sections of the tribal population.
More often the tribals are not even aware of the medical issues concerning them, so much so that several serious medical issues such as gynecological problems among women are normalised to a great extent. Nomadic tribes do not have any permanent place of residence. The incidence of diseases, malnutrition and other health issues is very high among them.
Through extensive field visits and several follow-up meetings, our team has been able to grasp an understanding of Medical Assistance that is required ranging from medical necessities and infrastructure to Medical Professionals.
Sensing the criticality of this problem, CEI started providing nutrition and medical aid for rural & tribal people, focusing on women, single parent households, widows, children (orphan, neglected & destitute) and other socio-economically weaker sections.
In addition to the Food Aid distribution which includes basic food provisions including rice, pulses, vegetables, CEI also distributes nutrition packets among the most economically backward and marginalized sections.
In this Nutrition Aid, each CEI’s Nutrition packet consisted of healthy cooked food rich in protein, vitamins as well as additional serving of fresh fruits.
Several thousand of nutrition packets were distributed among the most marginalized sections in flood affected tribal communities in Maharashtra especially focusing on orphan girls, widows, people with various disabilities and other marginalized communities belonging to the most economically backward sections of the rural areas.
CEI has also been conducting Medical Outreach Programmes providing healthcare services and devolving Health Empowerment Initiatives in communities that previously lacked the most basic healthcare services. For those people requiring special medical care, are further referred to bigger hospitals and/or medical specialists as per the case.
We have formed a team of medical professionals from India and abroad who will be able to provide complete assistance to the local medical staff in these remote areas in all aspects