1. PROFILE
2. STRUCTURE
3. COLLECTIVE

ORGANISATIONAL PROFILE

 The Centre for Rural Health and Social Education (CRHSE) was founded in the year 1978. After completing a taluk-wise (Revenue Division) survey on the socio-economic, political and cultural status of nearly 240 habitats, both in the rural areas on the plains and as well as in the tribal hamlets of Yelagiri and Javadi Hills, CRHSE began to promote community health activities coupled with social education for these two aspects which were found to have been lacking in the area.

The first decade of CRHSE's services was centered around establishing a strong field-base by giving clinical care to nearly sixty villages through eight rural clinics, training ninety Village Level Workers coming from as many villages, imparting health education, women and child health and school health programmes and forming Village Development Councils to impart socio-political education for peoples' participation and own development action. The first ten years of work was exciting, exhilarating and, at the same time, painful and frustrating. All these have now become history. The following sample account might give the reader an overview of CRHSE's engagement during the first ten years of its service to the rural and tribal people.

  • One Central Team of two doctors was formed to supervise health work
  • Eight full-fledged rural clinics were established
  • Eight Community Health Guides were trained for managing the clinics
  • Ninety Village Level health Workers were trained and certified
  • 4,04,289 sick people were given treatment.
  • Seven schools were fully covered under School Health Programme .
  • 12,900 children were immunised against Polio & DPT
  • Twenty Village Development Councils were formed and activated.
  • 40,000 saplings were distributed in the villages under National Environment Awareness Campaign and Water-shed Development
  • Siddha Health Scheme was promoted, including maintenance of the Herbal Garden at Nemur

The second decade of CRHSE's work was further more fruitful and interesting. CRHSE's expertise and specialisation in the field of community health and community organisation had by then come to be known and recognised quite widely among the NGOs both in India and as well as overseas. Its training modules especially of the VLWs was more or less accepted and a demand created.

Moreover, CRHSE's experience in the above fields have become models for field training and a number of NGOs were benefited by such training programmes. Therefore, training and consultancy for field-based programmes became vital to CRHSE's own nurture as well as to others who had come in contact with it.

Apart from the above, promotion of environment and ecological development gained significance during this time along with a series of local action-oriented community development activities. Thus in the second decade of CRHSE's life and work, besides its own activities of community health and community organisation, community development through community action became pre-dominant. The erstwhile Village Development Councils were getting transformed into a viable Social Education Movement and were beginning to express their rights and privileges. While continuing the regular work that was begun in the first phase, the second decade's programme can be highlighted in the following categories.

Seventy Units of Social Education Movement (SEM) were organised
Several hundreds of land ownership certificates were obtained for housing to the landless peasants in rural areas
Definite inroads were made into the development functions of the government for fulfilling peoples needs
Several Leadership Training Programmes were conducted for community leaders
People's participation was ensured by encouraging members of SEM to be elected as Panchayat Leaders (village councils)
Gender-equity was stressed in every sphere of development, be it family or community

The advent of the New Millennium and the third decade brought to the Centre for Rural Health and Social Education a fresh challenge. CRHSE was given the responsibility of forming nearly 1000 women's Self Help Groups in the Tirupattur taluk area by the Tamilnadu Corporation for the Development of Women. This also means that it is an enormous task and CRHSE needs to muster all its strength to cope with this new demand and mobilise adequate support from other sources to build a strong movement of women's SHGs. This will be an unique experience in our development efforts. This also entails the following engagement for CRHSE in the third decade of its ministry.

 Formation of more than 1000 women's SHGs allotted to CRHSE .
Inclusion of 35 IMY SHGs already formed by Government department under CRHSE's supervision.
Coordination of nearly 1100 SHGs, encouraging SHGs to get into the habit of regularly saving and obtaining credit from the Banks.
Training of Animators and Representatives of all the SHGs in 12 modules of 2-days each per month in leadership and maintenance of their respective SHGs .
Training also of the Members of all SHGs formed in 10 modules of one-day each per month (Nearly 18,000 women have to be covered under this plan).
Planning and actualizing of linkage programmes of eligible SHGs with government schemes meant for women development .
Nearly 100 youth SHGs are being formed in order to train and guide the potential youth for self-development and productivity.
Developing Entrepreneurial and Vocational skills of women and youth belonging to SHGs for income generation and greater economic self-sufficiency .

Thus, a total of nearly 18,000 women are being covered under this programme in the Tirupattur, Kandhili, Jolarpettai and Alangayam Blocks. It is to be noted that all the 8 previously formed and functional clinics are continuing to provide clinical support, and now the reach out seems to be ten-fold in the area of social education, community coverage, health education, RCH inputs etc. New staff have been included to fulfill this new development and CRHSE is doing all what it can to cope with this new situation.

CRHSE, throughout its life and work, has been engaged in appropriately decentralising its staff and administrative patterns so as to respond to the ever-widening concerns and geographical area of work.

In the first decade (1978-1988), Centralised Teams of staff were divided into workable and effective units such as sub-central and zonal entities. Both programmatic and financial decision making were part of their responsibility.
In the second decade (1989-1998), the decentralisation process was further intensified by making the sub-central and zonal units to become Divisions where training and internships, programmes, budgeting, accounts and financial management, staff coordination became part the Divisions responsibilities.
At the beginning of the third decade (1999 onwards), a more well defined character was given to the process of decentralisation by forming Block level units with full-fledged autonomy in all respects of the work. Programme planning, resource mobilisation and administration have all become the responsibility of the respective units with the Members of CRHSE Association extending full support.
A more elaborate plan is underway where CRHSE would soon become a collective and the senior staff playing a more constructive role in becoming innovative and futuristic in terms of service to the poor.
A Federation of SHGs (SEM SHGs) comprising of more than 1000 SHGs has been formed at the Divisional level to give complete independence to the functioning of women groups at the taluk level.



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