ACTIVITIES OF THE TRUST

January 01, 2014

Bhansali Trust is a Public Charitable Trust registered at Mumbai in the year 1969 and has since been carrying out various activities in Medical, Educational, Income generation, De-addiction and other Socio-Economic fields, we have also carried out various relief projects during natural calamities.

The Trust has 850 full time staff. Here is a list of our various on going projects in different fields:

A. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

1. Preschool Education through Aanganwadi – K.G. School (ICDS – Integrated Child Development Services):- At present, in North Gujarat 1262 Aanganwadis under the ICDS scheme of Central Government are managed by Bhansali Trust in Wav, Tharad, Radhanpur, Santalpur, Sami and Harij blocks. Number of Average beneficiaries per day during the year 2008 – 2009 was 65094. Preschool Education, supplementary nutrition, Immunization and timely referral of ill child are the major child-related activities of ICDS. Number of school going children has increased and dropouts have reduced due to aanganwadis. In addition to these Aanganwadis, Government has entrusted us additional 382 Aanganwadis in two tribal blocks namely - Dharampur and Kaprada of Valsad District. This project will start very soon.

2. Secondary Education: 5 High Schools with hostel facilities :- The Trust runs 5 high schools with hostel facilities in interior and backward area of North Gujarat. At present 2767 students are studying of which 830 are staying in hostels. 711 are boys in 5 hostels and 119 girls in 2 hostels.

3. Adolescent Girls Awareness Programme:- This is a non-formal education programme in 486 villages. The age group is 10-15 years and the subjects of training are Health, Hygiene, Immunization, Importance of safe drinking water, Family planning, Anemia, Importance of Education, Information about diseases like T.B - Malaria, child development, risk of different vices etc. In the year 2008 – 2009 we trained 10566 girls, so far we have trained 38385 girls under this programme. Recently out-of-school adolescent awareness project and “Ujas Yuva Counseling Centre” has been started at Tharad with help of IPD.

4. Blind students’ & Disabled students’ education programme: This is a government sponsored innovative project to send the blind and disabled children to normal school. We started this project in 1992 for the blind and disabled children who live in remote villages and are not able to join blind schools. Children from over 500 villages are given education with Braille and other training and sent to normal schools. This project is in six blocks and 2065 disabled students are covered under the project.

5. Aanganwadi Workers' Training Centre: A training centre for Aanganwadi workers (K.G. School Teachers) and helpers has been functional at Radhanpur since 1991.

6. SUVAS Project: To increase (1) Level of education, (2) Acceptance of Family Planning services and (3) De-addiction - especially for tobacco chewing habit. This new program has been started in the year 2000 with one worker per 18 villages. In addition, this project conducts tuition classes to give some additional educational inputs and some extracurricular activities in different villages. This project covers 358 villages with population of 537975 with help of 28 workers.

B. HEALTH INSTITUTIONS

1. Gandhi Lincoln Hospital, Deesa: Trust runs multidisciplinary 180 bedded hospital in Deesa (District - Banaskantha) since 1982. Hospital has special departments of pediatrics, gynecology, orthopedics, Pathology, Radiology, ENT, Psychiatry and ophthalmic in addition to medical and surgical departments. The hospital has its own blood bank and fully equipped laboratory. Sonography and X-ray facilities are also available.

2. Woman & Child Hospital, Radhanpur : - 55 bedded Hospital for Woman, child and general services at Radhanpur started in 1983. Hospital has 2 Gynecologists, 1 Pediatrician, 1 General Surgeon, 1 Pathologist, 1 Dentist and 3 Medical Officers (M.B.B.S). This hospital covers 200 surrounding villages and patients are treated with minimum fees. More than 2500 deliveries and 150 surgeries are carried out at the hospital, every year. X-ray, Sonography, Medical Stores, Ambulance and Food services for indoor patients are some of the facilities available at the hospital. One blood-bank is also functioning at the hospital.

3. Diagnostic Center at Ahmedabad: This Center was established in the year 1965. Around 12 to 15 doctor were providing their service here. Since last 2 years we have closed this center.

4. Sahyog Dispensary and diagnostic center - Surat: This center was started in 1975. Presently 2 Medical officers and 1 dentist are providing their services at this center.

5. Jivanshaili Clinic - Surat: Jivanshaili Clinic was started in 1997 at Surat for prevention and treatment of lifestyle disorders like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure with the help of diet, exercise, yoga, de-addiction and rational use of drugs. 9 books in Gujarati; and 3 books in Hindi have been published by the clinic. In addition to a full-time physician, full-time ophthalmologist and 2 dentist are also appointed at this clinic. Moreover honorary doctors of all major specialty provide their service once or twice a week.

C. OPERATIVE CAMPS

1. Free Eye Camp at Bodhgaya, Bihar: Since 1984 every year Bhansali Trust organizes a big eye camp at Bodhgaya town of Bihar State with the help of 55 Ophthalmologists, 130 nursing staff and 350 volunteers. The preparation for this camp starts in August with team of doctors and workers who visit 365 Centres which cover 2000 villages and check over 40000 patients. Of these 40000 patients, those require surgery are called to attend the eye camp in November. In the last camp held in November 2014 & March 2015, total 41780 cataracts and other Eye Surgeries were carried out. 616,856 cataract operations have been carried out in 31 such camps till March 2015. Lodging and boarding facilities for this camp, along with expenses for surgeries and medicines are free to the patients. Bhansali Trust carries out this project in partnership with some friends.

2. Eye camps and clinics at other places: In addition to the big eye camp at Bihar, Trust regularly runs eye clinics at Tharad and Khedbrahma where ophthalmologist visits once a week. We have a fully equipped mobile team with all equipments and facilities needed for small eye camp at different places. 6 months in a year we conduct small eye camps for cataract in Gujarat, Rajasthan & Madhya Pradesh. So far over 70150 cataract surgeries have been carried out in these small camps. Special camps for squint corrections are also arranged at Deesa hospital.

3. Other Operative Camps: At Gandhi Lincoln Hospital and other institutes, Trust periodically arranges operative camps for the benefit of polio victims and other disables. Operative camp for cleft lip and cleft palate have also been arranged 5 times with the help of world famous team of Operation Smile (USA). So far 708 cleft lip patients have been operated successfully.

D. COMMUNITY Health Programs

1. Immunization: Vaccinators trained by trust cover 702 villages having total population of 803202. Every year approx. 15100 children below one year are completely vaccinated against six major diseases. After 16 years of project, there is significant reduction in epidemics diseases.

2. Supplementary nutrition: Reduction in Malnourished children from 10% to 1.3% could be achieved in last 14 years through supplementary nutrition to preschool children, pregnant and lactating women in aanganwadis (K.G. Schools) run by Bhansali Trust under ICDS.

3. Vitamin A & prevention of Blindness: - Our project area being a drought prone area, most of the population suffers from Vitamin A deficiency. This causes night blindness in many cases, also some of them become blind. Every year the Trust distributes 300,000 capsules of Vitamin A (200,000 I.U.). With continued efforts for last 15 years there are no new cases of childhood blindness in 500 villages.

4. Safe motherhood program: In the remote villages a cadre of Rural Health Workers has been created by the Trust to provide antenatal services and to vaccinate pregnant mothers and children. Health education is imparted and important issues of gynac and obstetric care are discussed by the workers during their field visits. One worker serves 10 villages. Every year approx. 20,000 expectant mothers are covered under this project. Maternal mortality has been reduced significantly after continued efforts.

5. Dais (Traditional birth attendants) Training Programme: 1925 Traditional birth attendants from 788 aanganwadi areas in 560 villages have been trained so far. This has helped to reduce the maternal mortality rate. We have a plan to train another 200 such birth attendants in coming years.

6. Spacing & Family Planning: The rural population in our area is socially backward and hence it was very difficult to convince various orthodox communities to go for spacing and family planning. Working in this area for more than 20 years we have been able to bring a positive change in the society. In last eight years through Bhansali Trust’s efforts, 12031 women were operated with laparoscopic surgery method.

7. Primary health care by paramedical workers: In the remote villages where neither any doctor nor any over-the-counter medicines are available even for minor illness, the Trust has started paramedical services so that people can get primary medical care and non-prescription drugs by trained worker in their villages only. 760 part time and 2 full time workers cover 613 villages for treatment of common ailments. 571352 patients were treated by this paramedics during 2008 – 2009.

8. T.B. (Tuberculosis) control programme: This programme was started in 1984 and covers 1200 villages. Special field-staff of more than 20 for follow up and completion of treatment is a unique part of this program in which over 53,229 T.B patients were treated so far with treatment defaulter rate of around 15%. All patients on treatment are followed up at their villages and motivated to complete the course of treatment.

9. Opium De-addiction program: 1,100 villages from Gujarat and Rajasthan are covered under this program. 10 workers regularly motivate people to leave opium and not to restart opium once left. So far over 28675 opium addicts have been cured in 1118 camps with defaulter (Relapse) rate of 49%.

10. CHAPT (Community Health Awareness, Prevention and Treatment): This program was started in 2004 with aim of preventing chronic and mainly non-communicable illnesses in the villages. Diseases like High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Heart Diseases, Asthma and Cancer are covered under the project. Initial baseline survey revealed approximately 10% combined prevalence of these diseases. Presently 15 health workers are working in 184 villages having total population of 275528. They check BP and Sugar at field level, give advice regarding healthy lifestyle and refer needy patients to apex hospital. Irregular patients on follow up at hospital are also traced at village level and motivated for regular follow up and treatment. We have a plan to expand this project to other blocks.

E. INCOME GENERATING ACTIVITIES

1. Kapas Lodhia: This is a small, hand operated machine costing approximately Rs. 500 ($12) and is used to separate seeds from cotton. 370 families have been given this machine to earn some extra money to support their families.

2. Deepening of Wells: In the hilly area, stone wells are deepened with blastings to get more water, this helps them to irrigate their land. So far, 2280 wells in Banaskantha & Sabarkantha and over 5000 wells in Panchmahal district are deepened.

3. Papad: 120 women are employed in this programme. We have a plan to expand this project to employ another 200 women. Total profit is distributed among them.

4. Sewing Uniforms: 120 women are employed in this project.

5. Sewing Machine: We distribute sewing machines at a subsidized rate to poor and needy women in small villages. This helps them to earn supplementary income. Over 517 sewing machines have been distributed so far. This year we will distribute another 200 machines.

6. Loans: Poor Families from small villages are given loans so that they can start their own small business. 526 families are covered under this programme.

F. FINANCIAL SUPPORT & OTHER ACTIVITIES

1. Humanitarian aid to the needy: Very poor, needy and hapless families are identified and helped every month without discrimination of Caste, Creed and Religion. 3057 such families are sent money orders every month under this programme.

2. Mahila Shakti project (Self-help group): In last two years we expanded this project. At present 4839 self help groups have been formed in 538 villages of six blocks. Total saving of all groups is over Rs.6,00,00,000/-. These are groups of socially and economically backward women. Each group starts with small savings from all the members every month, then getting some loan from the bank and adding it to the saved amount, they start giving loans (micro-credit) to the members who want to start a small business. The other aspect of this project is to bring awareness among the group members about health, hygiene, education, immunization, de-addiction etc.