Orissa, Jharkhand Cut Neonatal Mortality Rates

 Mothers in the tribal regions of Jharkand and Orissa are stopping their babies from dying by simply 'peer educating' and 'talking out' problems with the help of NGOs like Ekjut. TOI reports:

Prasanta Tripathy runs the NGO Ekjut, which facilitated the training. He says “there is a 45% reduction in neonatal mortality rate as well as a change in practices related to child-rearing. Besides, there is a 57% reduction in postnatal depression.”
Tripathy says they stress on “participation, learning and action — the ingredients in the making of an empowered mother and healthy baby.”
The NGO started with 20 women in three villages around Chakradharpur six years ago. By now, it has 20,000 trained women, spread across more than a thousand villages in nine districts of Jharkhand and Orissa.
Sumitra Gagrai, Ekjut group coordinator, says the core of the revolution was the community spirit unleashed, when trained female volunteers fanned out across remote villages “to encourage adolescent girls and married women to find practical solutions for good health during the pre and post pregnancy period.” 

Read the TOI reports here and here.
Just another example of how far even a handful of small basic steps can go in alleviating the seemingly intractable challenges facing us today.