Abstract:
Government of India and its state health departments take the projects further and reach the
beneficiaries with the help of primary health centers and workers attached to social welfare
department. The study tries to explore developing alternative communication methods and also
developing alternative human resources, effective in popularizing government health projects.
This project was carried out in two phases. The first phase involved a focused group discussion in
three villages to assess the level of awareness of health and hygiene issues keeping an authentic
state government publication as reference. The respondents were grouped into three small groups
comprising five members in each group. The discussion with the respondents which comprised
of either gender concentrated on topics such as the formation and working of health and hygiene
committees, auxiliary nurse midwives, availability of community and Primary Health Centers,
hospitals at District and Taluq Centers, prenatal and postnatal care provided to women by the
health department of the Government, projects undertaken by the government for the
beneficiaries belonging to different age groups and gender, health camps and availability of tests
and treatments for diseases like TB and HIV/AIDS and emergency services. It is interesting to
note that a few of the respondents were able to correlate and recognize the government projects
under its project name after the lecture and particularly after the street play and this proves
that there is scope and need for strengthening interpersonal communication. It is suggested that
the government and the officials concerned should take some initiatives in mobilizing the
community of beneficiaries to come out of their selfish and caste based cocoon in making the
issues known to the public in general. Apart from this there is a need to discover and tap potential
alternative communication medium.
