Project Aarogya: Health, Hope and Happiness

Project Aarogya is an initiative started by some of the residents of Ranka Court Apartments, Cambridge Layout, to provide medical attention to street children in Bangalore. The core team consists of five members:- Asmita Rajiv, Geetha Prem, Ritu Jain, Savita Singh and Nondini Das. Coming from different backgrounds, these ladies, who are also mothers, have joined hands to work for a common cause. They are committed to make a difference in the lives of these children. They feel the need to come out of their comfort zone to do something worthwhile for the street children who are deprived of their childhood, love and care, and most importantly, are being deprived of a hope for a bright and healthy future.

As a part of the project, the team organized a Medical camp for street children in the City Market area on November 24th. Four doctors volunteered for the camp. Around 120 street children came for medical check-up. The team sought help from an NGO called BOSCO, which is doing great work on rehabilitation of street children. Almost all of these children suffered from malnutrition and scabies. Children suffering from common ailment were prescribed medicines, which the team had provided by collecting funds from the residents of Ranka Court Apts.

A few children with special medical needs were identified; and their cases would be taken forward by tying up with hospitals to ensure that the required treatment is provided to them. Similar medical camps would be organized on a regular basis with multiple objectives in mind- (i) to provide immediate medical relief, (ii) to do follow-up check-ups, (iii) to identify children with serious medical conditions and (iv) to ensure their complete recovery.

The team is hoping that many more people join them in this cause to take a stand for these children whom the society has given up on.

With this first phase of the project completed, the residents of the Ranka Court Apartments have set out on their next objective: Getting Medical Health for at least 100 street children by Jan 8, 2008.

Beyond that they have a long term objective to incorporate a Trust of core team members, with an objective of starting more such projects/ initiatives such as “Aarogya” in areas such as health care, education, training, art & craft etc, and tie-up with different NGOs to implement these initiatives

The Trust would implement these projects/ initiatives by doing one or more of the following:

• Conceptualization
• Garnering Funds
• Providing assistance in backend operations
• Organizing events
• Providing person-hours
• End-to-end execution of project