Now, child birth through music
Vijay Upadhyay
Agra. Rural health teams visiting UP villages Pradesh are often faced with resistance during immunisation programmes of infants and pregnant women.
Villagers rely more on local wise-women who recite folk-songs as a foil to a host of ailments as also to aid child birth.
And now, a Delhi-based social worker has compiled maternal health folk songs in original voices of the old women of these villages in order to promote community health efforts among villagers.
Sponsored by a Meerut NGO, research scholar and social worker Vaani Sethi's efforts in three villages of Agra began in September 2003 when she first arrived here to work on her thesis on public health but her involvement in the local health programmes soon grew into promoting community efforts with the help of the old, experienced women of the villages.
During her research in Gopau, Nagla Mansh and Nagla Khushhali, Vaani came across several women who had inherited knowledge of pregnancy problems in the form of folk songs and she decided to bring these women together as a volunteer group to provide health consultancy to pregnant women.
Christened Bal Gopal Seva Mandal, this group consists of 24 dadis who sang the songs at various places. Vaani has made an audio database of these folk-songs.
Recently, she released an audio compilation of 15 folk songs guiding pregnant women into pre-natal and ante-natal care and immunization of the child from the first day of pregnancy to the 5th year of delivery. All these songs are sung by dadis.
The CD provides information to pregnant women on danger signs and how to carry out the pregnancy successfully. Vaani says the CD has made it easier for her to spread the message of maternal health. But for her, this resultant improvement in health conditions of the villagefolk has created an entirely different problem for her - too much demand, too little time.
Agra. Rural health teams visiting UP villages Pradesh are often faced with resistance during immunisation programmes of infants and pregnant women.
Villagers rely more on local wise-women who recite folk-songs as a foil to a host of ailments as also to aid child birth.
And now, a Delhi-based social worker has compiled maternal health folk songs in original voices of the old women of these villages in order to promote community health efforts among villagers.
Sponsored by a Meerut NGO, research scholar and social worker Vaani Sethi's efforts in three villages of Agra began in September 2003 when she first arrived here to work on her thesis on public health but her involvement in the local health programmes soon grew into promoting community efforts with the help of the old, experienced women of the villages.
During her research in Gopau, Nagla Mansh and Nagla Khushhali, Vaani came across several women who had inherited knowledge of pregnancy problems in the form of folk songs and she decided to bring these women together as a volunteer group to provide health consultancy to pregnant women.
Christened Bal Gopal Seva Mandal, this group consists of 24 dadis who sang the songs at various places. Vaani has made an audio database of these folk-songs.
Recently, she released an audio compilation of 15 folk songs guiding pregnant women into pre-natal and ante-natal care and immunization of the child from the first day of pregnancy to the 5th year of delivery. All these songs are sung by dadis.
The CD provides information to pregnant women on danger signs and how to carry out the pregnancy successfully. Vaani says the CD has made it easier for her to spread the message of maternal health. But for her, this resultant improvement in health conditions of the villagefolk has created an entirely different problem for her - too much demand, too little time.
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