LEEVIN HEALTH CLINIC

Basic Services: provides health care to the community at a nominal cost (ten rupees) to rural population of Aniyeri and its surrounding villages.

For those in rural India, health care is often inaccessible or, in the rare localities that it is accessible, too expensive for many. Leevin has addressed this issue at Aniyeri and surrounding villages with the establishment of the Leevin Health Care Centre. Since 2008, The Health Care Centre has run a free primary health care service for more than 5,000 people around Aniyeri. The only service of its kind in the region, the Centre is staffed by a doctor and nursing staff from the local area, as well as several community social workers.

Over 26,000 people now have access to medical care of good quality, at a nominal cost. This allows for them to be treated for diseases and conditions for which they would have no other means of treatment.

We also hope, in the future, to employ more doctors and nurses at LEEVIN CLINIC, as the demand for health care at the Centre has grown exponentially. In particular, we are in desperate need of a female doctor. Funds are urgently required for their appointment, as they will be able to increase the quality of the medical care we provide, as well as implement health education programs geared to the needs of the villagers.

LEEVIN EDUCATION

Like most government schools in rural India, the standard of local schools is very poor. Government schools in the area are highly under resourced, suffering from sub-standard infrastructure, large teacher-student ratios, irregular teacher attendance (which has a dramatic impact on teacher motivation), and lack of equipment and teaching materials. This continues to lower motivation among children to attend school and increases the already high level of illiteracy. Statistics reveal that 50 per cent of 5th Grade children in Tamil Nadu cannot read even a paragraph in Tamil, their native language. Student attendance in local schools is low. Although private schools do exist, the tuition fees are unaffordable for most families, as are costs of additional tuition. For those that do manage to do relatively well in school, the options for higher study are very limited as access to either tertiary institutions or training facilities is very difficult and also unaffordable. LEEVIN has been working with the staff and community at the Anaiyer High School. We have assisted in the following ways: • Provision of desks and fans for classrooms • Provision of scholarship and tuition assistance • Health, hygiene, and physical education initiatives • Regular after-school English tuition classes • Environmental education classes Provision of safe drinking water (in progress) If you are interested in contributing funds towards a better quality of education, LEEVIN and the children of Anaiyeri would be extremely grateful. Any contribution, no matter how big or small, has the potential to make a genuine contribution to the future of these children. You may choose to nominate where your funds be spent – for example, the monthly salary for a professional and experienced teacher is approximately around Rs. 1500.

Community Development