Anemia awareness…part deux!

My goal for my first week in Bagar was to understand the work Lisa did in Jhaatavas and to assess the effectiveness of the tests done and medicine distributed before. Lisa tested 123 people overall. The average women’s HB count was ~9.5 and 89 of the women had an HB count ˜10 and were anemic. This week I wanted to test at least a third of those considered anemic and given medicine to see whether the women’s awareness of anemia and if the medicine had had any effect. The overall idea is that since we will only be doing one more anemia camp, we want the Jhaatavas community to continue to be aware of anemia, its symptoms & effects, and how to prevent future cases on its own.

I made good progress for achieving my weekly goal. I spent time reading all of Lisa’s research and test results and wrote up a report summarizing the awareness campaign. I procured the testing equipment, learned how the HB test is done, and hired the lab technician to do retests. I worked with a guide to make a map of Jhaatavas and to go to areas of Jhaatavas that we hadn’t reached. I built really good rapport in Jhatawas, especially with Dulichandji family and made over 50 household visits. During my Jhaatawas visits I increased interests in more women for getting tested at the next camp and spread awareness about anemia. There were some challenges. For instance, the retesting took longer than planned because everyone was very friendly and would want to talk and offer us chai. We will finish the last half of the tests sometime next week

Next week, I have big goals for conducting a second anemia camp. I also will wrap up the retesting and write a report on my findings.

For future development, I have learned that logistically it might be best to do these sort of campaigns during the summer months when kids don’t have school and when it is not the rain season since all the women are busy in the fields.