Our Current Programs
| Rehabilitation Initiative (Goma, DRC)  |
Nursery Project (Goma, DRC) |
• School Health Program • (Saragur, India) |
Educational Seminar Program (both sites) |
School Health Screening Program
In 2008 at the request of our partners in India, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, IPOP helped design and launch the School Health Screening Program in rural Karnataka State.
The primary goal of the Program is to promote the health of children in an underserved area of India with a large population of marginalized “tribal” peoples, who often do not seek medical care for their children until a catastrophic illness occurs. The goal is to identify children suffering from malnutrition and other common or chronic illnesses, and connect them to health care at SVYM or another appropriate hospital in the area. We also provide universal treatment for intestinal parasitic infections and Vitamin A prophylaxis (deficiency of which is a leading cause of preventable blindness).
The screening process is comprehensive, including: collection of demographic information, vision screening, dental screening, height and weight measurements and graphing for percentiles, full medical exam from head to toe, and written referrals for health conditions identified that would benefit from follow-up.
As with all of our programs, our approach is not only focused on health service delivery but education. To that end, our volunteer pediatricians train local staff and rotating medical interns to perform the screening independently. At each school, we also conduct a general health education session for the entire student body and their teachers.
The baseline statistical information collected is being used to advocate for improving and enhancing the health care services available to the rural and underserved children in this part of India. Additionally, with successive visits to schools over several years, we can begin to track individual and aggregate outcomes and the impact of specific interventions aimed at reducing the local burden of chronic childhood illness and disease.
Our Partners
Heal Africa (website)
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
IPOP currently partners with HEAL Africa (Health, Education, Community Action and Leadership), a Congolese non-profit that began in 1995 and is headquartered in Goma, DRC. With a core of medical and public health specialists, HEAL Africa deals with the broad impact of war and poverty on its people, addressing the physical, psychological and economic consequences with a wide variety of programs. IPOP partners with HEAL Africa because of their holistic, grassroots community approach and clear record of accomplishment in the region. IPOP programs in Goma are aimed to reach the greater medical community as well.
IPOP Accomplishments in Africa
Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (website)
Saragur, India
IPOP partners with Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), an Indian non-profit organization founded in 1984 by physicians from Mysore wishing to care for the poor and marginalized in their community. SVYM is at the leading edge of providing a holistic community-based approach to rectifying the social and preventable determinants of ill health.
After two decades of work, SVYM has built a new hospital to serve tribal communities and villages, created a complete school system for the children of the region, and developed community outreach programs aimed at rectifying many of the root causes of poor health and welfare in India.
SVYM’s main campus is in Saragur, a town of approximately 15,000 in the state of Karnataka in southern India. SVYM serves a population of nearly 500,000 consisting of rural, often inaccessible, and poorly developed tribal communities and villages. SVYM operates in 12 districts in this region, providing the impetus to improve health and education, and to bring about sustainable community development.
