Date:26/06/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/26/stories/2008062653130300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

CEDOW wins World Bank grant for project for women’s health

Staff Reporter

CEDOW has to date educated more than 1,000 adolescent girls
Its project rated one of the five best of 20 winners

Kakinada: The Kakinada-based Centre for Development and Empowerment of Women (CEDOW) won a $ 20,000 grant from the World Bank for implementing its innovative project titled `Adolescent girls as promoters of basics in feminine hygiene, health and nutrition’ from July 2004.

The CEDOW was one of the five projects adjudged best in contests held for `India Development Marketplace for Improving Rural Services (IDM-2004)’, a competitive grant programme of the World Bank aimed at supporting non-governmental actors in finding creative approaches to development issues.

The theme

CEDOW President Aluri Vijayalakshmi said the theme for IDM-2004 was `Improving rural services- access and quality’ and CEDOW earned its place in 50 finalists among 1,500 entries from India. The World Bank recently communicated to the CEDOW that its project was rated one of the five best out of 20 winners for devising the novel way of helping women in rural areas to be healthy. Under the project, CEDOW has to date educated more than 1,000 adolescent girls about the female health issues and how they could make women in different communities healthier by spreading the message that by knowing the basics of health and nutrition, they can protect themselves from diseases. It is essential that `adolescent health’ is included in the syllabus in schools and colleges.