AID INDIA

Feeling particiulary decadant about traveling these 5 months, Ian and I decided before we left that we wanted to volunteer for a week of our travels. Through four degrees of seperation, we were put in touch with Dr. Banaji Sampath from AID INDIA in Chennai through Amisha's mother, Chandan Sharma.

Staffed by dedicated men and women, AID INDIA is a NGO based in Channai whose main activitis are designing, implementing, and testing educational materials to improve the math and English education of students all over Tamil Nadu. They develop these materials then lobby the powers that be to implement these changes. It's a win-win situration for the children and the politicans. In addition, they are involved in rural health activities and education.

We both had interesting projects that we completed in a week. Ian built a PHP program to keep track of the organizations' scholarship awardees. He was literally in a sweat-shop working from 10 - 7 for 6 days in front of a computer in a stifiling hot office. He was able to create a very useful tool for the organization.

Their rural health education focudsed on women's health issues. In my discussions with Prabha, the health program coordinator, it became evident that they could benefint from both staff and village health-worker education in cancers affecting women. The most common cancer plaguing women in India is cervical at 30% and then breast at 19%. To put this in prespective, cervical cancer in the US plummeted after the advent of the PAP smear in the 1960s. Now, cervical cancer lies in the upper teens of most common cancers in the US. It seems fairly unknown here (as with some women in the US), that HPV, an STD, if the causative agent of cervical cancer. In common with many diseases targeting the poor around the world, it is a travisty that anyone dies of cervical cancer since there are such effective secondary preventative treatments. A recent NEJM cost-effectivness study of cerivcal cancer screening determined that if India screened women with one PAP smear, the lifetime risk of cancer by approximately 25 to 36%, and cost less than $500 per year of life saved (Goldie 2005). The Indian government has decided that the screening would be prohibitivaly expensive. Poverty, disenfransiment, female sex - a terrible mileu for womens' health.

Here was a great oppturnity for education. I developed educational pamphlets on breast and cevical cancer that will be illustrated and translated into Tamil. I also researched and prepared a lectures on cervical and breast cancers for the staff of AID INDIA - everything from pathophysiology of cancer, to prevention and treatment. Some of the 20 attendees were completely proficient in English, though most needed near simultaneous translation into Tamil by Prabha. I was pleased and supriesed that after hearing me lecture about cervical cancer for 90 minutes on a Saturday morning in a 90 degree room, they wanted to hear more about breast cancer. The two-and-a-half hour lecture was punctuated by lively discussion and question and answer periods. Unlike med school classes, not a single person fell asleep!

We both gained great gratification from the services we provided and met many great people. Hopefully our efforts were recieved in the like.

~Nisha