Opportunity International Australia Blog

For many of Opportunity International Australia’s clients, this is a reality.

Often families are faced with the sudden and unexpected illness of a family member that could easily be treated with basic healthcare. However, for many people living in rural regions with limited money, even minor illnesses that they are forced to leave untreated can be devastating.

In India, Opportunity is partnering with a strategic and technical partner in healthcare to address this issue - The Healing Fields Foundation. Opportunity plans to educate 70 women in basic healthcare procedures and disease prevention methods, empowering them to become Community Healthcare Facilitators (CHFs).

These CHFs will each educate approximately 250 households in their community about personal healthcare and imparting crucial information about the state-provided facilities which many families are unaware they have access to.

Microfinance is effective in giving people a chance to increase their income by growing a small business but in some cases, a small shock such as ill health can push a family back into poverty. The sustainability of income improvements as a result of microfinance is therefore challenged and its long term positive impacts can become unstable.

To combat this, the CHFs will also encourage collectives of families to establish health savings groups which can be accessed should a group member become ill and be faced with healthcare costs.

The program has the potential to reach over 87,500 people (70 CHFs reaching 250 households of five people) and educate them on the importance of healthcare and saving for these incidents. The program aims to reduce mortality rates, lower the incidence of disease, increase income security and bring communities together in collectives.

Programs like this offer Opportunity’s clients a more holistic approach to reducing poverty. If you would like to help support Opportunity’s programs and give families a greater chance at overcoming poverty, please click here to donate today.

It looked like a typical day for me in India. Ranjani, Director of Opportunity’s Indian Subsidiary, Dia Vikas had arranged a string of meetings including  breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings and others in between. Am I getting too old for this unrelenting pace? Still, being presented with a cream birthday cake at breakfast with typical Indian pomp and ceremony energised me for the day.

The breakfast meeting was with one of our key advisors in matters regulatory, Nandan Singh Bisht and our CFO in India, Monty Sen. They’ve been reviewing Ranjani’s plans for a web campaign to inspire thousands of citizens to encourage the central government to put and pass its draft Microfinance Bill. The draft bill is a good step forward but it’s nothing if it remains a draft. And in India that’s not unusual. Read about the bill at http://www.opportunity.org.au/Latest-News/New-bill-gives-clarity-and-confidence-to-Indian-mi.aspx

After breakfast, we met with Sam Chander, the new MD of our microfinance partner in Chennai, GO Finance. Sam dressed up for the meeting; he normally dresses to fit in with the people in poverty he serves. He has spent considerable time with them, understanding their needs. There’s much I like about Sam. There have been times where he’s taken the tough option, acted in accordance with the organisation’s high values and paid a financial price. He’s building a quality organisation that is truly serving the poor in Chennai.

Next was a meeting with the tireless Mukti Bosco, the head of Healing Fields. This great organisation helps make health care affordable and accessible to the marginalised in India. One way is to train local people in poor, rural areas to be community health leaders. They then bring basic health education to the people in their own communities. Microfinance organisations are great distribution platforms for such a service and Healing Fields works with two of our key partners in the north of India, Cashpor and RRDC.

Often we think of health insurance as the answer to affordable healthcare. But insurance doesn't cover outpatient care – the vast majority of health interventions. Typically the poor will pay for a consultancy ($1) but when facing a prescription bill of $5 to $20 they will hand what they have to the pharmacist and say, “Just give me what this will pay for“. So they only take part of a course of antibiotics and they often get sicker. Microfinance coupled with health training can address that by giving specific small loans tailored to the cost of all the medicines prescribed.

We’re not experts in health but Healing Fields is. Together we’re planning ways of making healthcare more accessible and affordable for the poor.

We ended the day with Nandan and over dinner considered ways to get more funds into the sector. It needs it. We didn’t need another birthday cake. But you don’t want to be rude. This was anything but a typical day in India.

Robert Dunn
CEO
Opportunity International Australia

Birthday greetings in India