RIST has been in partnership with Arogya World since 2017 funding two essential programs: Healthy Schools and mDiabetes.
- mDiabetes is an Arogya World program using mobile technology to motivate improvement in diabetes risk behaviors, and prevent diabetes. Arogya World committed to enrolling a total of 300,000 people over three years, from Aravind Eye Hospital locations in Tamilnadu, and send them free mDiabetes messages for six months. The project showed good effectiveness and will be completed in 2020.
- Healthy Schools is a two-year peer-led school-based diabetes education and prevention program aimed at children, ages 11-14. The goal is to implement activities that can bring about significant gains in knowledge of diabetes and the ways it can be prevented through diet and exercise, as well as positive behavior change related to healthy food choices and increased physical activity. Trained students and teachers/staff from partner organizations are used as implementers. In a first phase, Arogya World reached 100,000 students in mostly rural government schools in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh. Working with these partners: HRIDAY, Agastya, Sharp, SRU and CINI, we will reach another 350,000 students in a second phase by 2022. The program is known to work – we estimate 15% impact (i.e., awareness improvement and behavior change.)
Thanks to RIST and their support we have scaled projects and are making an impact on NCDs in communities across India.
