Partners

Karuna Evam Shanti Vahini Foundation

KeSVF sees accessible and compassionate health care as a human right and believes that communities need to be supported and capacitated to look out for each other as the public health system is not accessible to everyone. Recognizing this need, the organization is committed to building an interlinked network of care with multi-focal and multi agencies interventions involving community-level institutions, government and non-government organizations and others. Their primary approach is to build local leadership to respond to health-related suffering in the community.

Project with MHI:
MHI is supporting Karuna Evam Shanti Vahini Foundation to implement a project that intends to facilitate access to palliative care for marginalized communities in Nandurbar. This project intends to capacitate communities and healthcare providers to respond to distress arising within families on account of serious health suffering and to build an interlinked model of healthcare including home-based palliative care, that engages with families, communities, and civil society groups, as well as public, private and traditional systems of medicine and health.

Maharashtra is among the few states that have a palliative care policy in place and Nandurbar is one of the priority districts for Maharashtra’s Palliative Care program. KeSVF’s work has commenced in Akkalkuwa block, marked by hilly terrain with more than fifty percent forest cover. A remote block, it has scattered habitations, poor connectivity, and distantly located health care centres. It ranks low on health and development indicators. The local KeSVF team from the Bhil community comprises of two social workers and two nurses, and will be trained by the Chinchpada Christian Hospital in Nandurbar that presently runs a palliative care program
in the district. The effort would be to set up a networked system of referral and care, bringing both physical and psycho-social support to communities at the margins in this district.

For more information, please visit: www.karunashanti.in