Yesterday was International World Health Day (anniversary of the founding of the WHO in 1948). Reality Gives Health plays a very important role in our social activities in Dharavi’s communities, as it is the foundation of every individual’s development. Successful education and livelihood projects are based on good health, and therefore, it all starts from there. We celebrated World Health Day last Saturday, as it is a better day to reach out to as many people as possible in our community. First, we started with a special program for the Youth Empowerment Program, hosted by Community Centre workers Tasleem and Nazia. The students performed a play scripted by FMCH (Foundation for Mother and Child Health), and Reshma gave a speech about the importance of health.
Also, the Jazz Dance Class gave a very lovely performance of their skills, which was followed by a b-boying demonstration of Akash, one of Reality Tours’ guides. As the founder of the dancing club, Slumgods, he also spoke about the importance of dance and other exercises for good health.
After that the students were encouraged to all give a small demonstration of their dancing and singing skills – all had so much fun! Yoti, Soft Skills Teacher for the Youth Empowerment Program brought the event to a conclusion with a final speech and pointed out the poster exhibition about health issues and how to solve them.
Later in the afternoon the FMCH session was conducted a little bit differently than usual to celebrate World Health Day. First the nutritionists played a little tricking game with the mothers: with bandaged eyes they were guided to feel different healthy cooking ingredients like lentils, beans and mustard seeds and had to guess what they feel.
Afterwards, the teachers of the English Language Program performed a lovely puppet show, which especially addressed the kids in the audience. The story was about a little boy who refused to eat healthy homemade food from his mum and rather had junk food. After becoming very sick and having bad dreams, he realised his wrong behavior and aimed for a healthy lifestyle.
