By: Ali Mohammad Shahwani
Lali is a great example of proactive community leadership. She belongs to Taaro Bheel village, which is situated near the bank of Naseer Canal, Union Council Oderolal Station, Taluka and District Matiari. A total of 98 household dwell in the village, with a population of 724 individuals, out of which 368 are males and 356 females. Four Community Organizations (COs) have been established in the village by the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) under the European Union funded SUCCESS Programme. All 78 members of the four COs are women. Several misconceptions prevailed in the village regarding diseases and its prevention, including vaccination programmes. Such misconceptions, especially among women, arise because women do not have access to education, decision making power and are often restricted to doing only household chores; as a consequence of this women continue to suffer from preventable diseases.
She is the Manager of one of the Community Organisations (COs) and the local Village Organization (VO), and also is a member of the LSO Oderolal Station. She has three children: two boys and a girl. She, along with her husband, work as farm labourers, just like most of the other villagers. In Lali’s community, women are expected to wear veil all the time and uphold the traditional values.
As VO manager, Lali she attended Leadership Management Skills Training (LMST) at NRSP’s Field Unit at Matiari. During the training for VO leaders, there were sessions on the Community Awareness Toolkit (CAT), a product developed under the SUCCESS Programme. The sessions related to health issues most interested Lali. She became aware of the Tetanus vaccines and how it can help build immunization and prevent complications during a woman’s pregnancy. Lali also learnt about the importance of immunization for children under two years of age.
When NRSP’s social mobilisation staff visited Lali’s CO to monitor regular meetings, she asked the staff about the procedure for routine immunization as she was also three months pregnant. Lali said that there had been several cases of frequent fits (a sudden attack of convulsions and/or loss of consciousness, typical of epilepsy and some other medical conditions) in her community, and people perceive it as some sort of punishment from god for their ‘bad’ deeds, which, of course, is a myth.
Lali and other members of the CO Taro Bheel One (1) were successful in convincing the influential persons in their families to get permission for vaccination. This was the first time that many of females took part in decision-making and went outside the village for vaccination. They went to the hospital and five women successfully got vaccinated; the routine immunization is continued since then. Lali along with her co-members in CO/VO/LSO are now raising awareness among local women about routine vaccination, and are determined to the spread the message of “prevention is better than cure”.
The contributor is SUCCESS-NRSP’s District M&E Officer, Tando Allahyar & Matiari.