Sama was invited to Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, by the Guild for Service to conduct a session on health for women community leaders or peer counsellors from Vrindavan (UP) and nearby areas. The session was one in a series of sessions on diverse issues and themes, being conducted by the Guild to enhance the capacities of women from the community towards becoming ‘agents of change’.
About 20 women from neighboring villages attended the session on health. The session included exercises and discussions around the understanding of health; the various determinants of health, including the different axes of marginalization – gender, caste, ability, class, age, etc., that impact the health status.
The participants identified shortage of water, poverty, lack of adequate and quality public health services, inflation and high costs of living as some of the ongoing problems that they were faced with in their villages that had impacted their health. Apart from these, control of mobility and sexuality, sex selection and other violence against women were discussed as major causes of ill health and access to health and health care.