Nina Puri - Family Planning Association of India (FPAI)
Dr. Nina Puri is the president of the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI). She also serves on the Governing Body of the Population Foundation of India which is actively involved in the sphere of sexual and reproductive health, including family planning and HIV/AIDS. Presently, she is the immediate Past President of IPPF, having been elected as International President of IPPF in 2003, and is also a Patron of FPA India. She was also Chairperson of the Regional Executive Council of South Asia for six years, and thereafter was Chairperson of the Regional Executive Council for two years. Dr. Puri has been an active volunteer for over 35 years and has a PhD and MA in history. She is especially interested in women's development and empowerment issues. She started as a volunteer with FPAI in 1972 in Yamunanagar, a small town in the state of Haryana and has held a variety of positions since then. In this interview she relates some FPAI success stories.
FPAI Background
Founded in 1949
India's most important private family planning organization with 40 branches and 8 integrated rural projects
Mission: to promote family planning as a basic human right for everyone.
Advocates for a national population policy that will contribute to a balanced development of the resources of the country, and as a means to improve the quality of life.
Since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, FPAI has focused its activities on reproductive health and capacity building. FPAI works in family life and sexuality education, reproductive health and family planning, and training and research. Its rural projects use a community participation approach to integrate reproductive and child health with women's empowerment and youth issues. FPAI also works with other NGOs to make reproductive health and family planning an integral part of their work.
Small Family by Choice Project
Designed to create local ownership and future sustainability
Launched in 1995 in three districts in Madhya Pradesh - Bhopal, Sagar and Vidisha
Later extended to a fourth district, Raisen, where indicators of development were worse than the previous three districts
Reaches a potential population of over 4 million people in 3,900 villages
The "Small Family by Choice" (Parivar Pragati Pariyojana) Project's goal is to improve sexual and reproductive health through social transformation and by increasing access to and improving the quality of reproductive health education and services. The project has established over 4,000 local voluntary groups, which are the mechanism for community participation that creates long-term support for the project's activities.
The project was launched at a meeting of 500 women in Bhopal. The women were asked to postpone marriage until after the age of 18 and think about planning to have their babies in a hospital or health center rather than at home. At that time 80% of deliveries in Madhya Pradesh took place at home. The women were encouraged to demand better health care services from the government as well. The project has since been expanded to many other communities and has won awards such as the IPPF Global Vision 2000 Award and the Commonwealth Award for Excellence. It was selected as one of the world's outstanding sustainable development projects in 2000.
Women's health and girls' education are the most important issues addressed in project activities. Income-generation projects are created to enable women to become independent. Project field workers also provide nutrition information, health check-ups, day-care for the children of working parents, and preschool education. People are encouraged to take advantage of clinical and non-clinical services, and to learn more about both sexual and reproductive health. The project encourages people to think about having fewer children and sells contraceptives and other health items as part of its social marketing activities.
For profiles of four participants in this project who have been dramatically affected by the project, read the January 1999 issue of IPPF's publication "Real Lives" which is accessible online at http://www.ippf.org/regions/sar/rl/issue3/small.htmactivities
Being a time-bound project, the "Small Family by Choice" Project is no longer internationally funded, however many of its activities and lessons learned have been mainstreamed and integrated with ongoing activities in the community. For example, the National Rural Health Mission which was launched recently in India, incorporates much from this project.
Accommodating Client Needs after Sterilization
In the past, the typical government hospital would routinely keep a woman who had just undergone a tubal ligation in the hospital for 24 hours after the procedure. Many women did not want to spend that much time in a hospital. They really could not afford to do so. FPAI worked with the government to decrease the amount of time that women have to spend in a health facility after sterilization. In the last five years, FPAI has successfully treated over 50,000 patients using this approach.
FPAI Participation in IPPF's Quality of Care Initiative
FPAI participates in IPPF's new 'quality of care' initiative, which was launched in 2001. It is designed to improve quality of care by updating standards, establishing systems of quality improvement through self-assessment and planning, and offering technical training to providers. Each of FPAI's 40 branches has conducted a self-assessment and developed its own improvement plan. FPAI has selected staff for additional training. FPAI's leadership supports this training because as Dr. Puri states, "any organization is only as strong as its weakest link - or its staff with the least amount of training." FPAI currently has 1,000 employees and an ongoing program to upgrade their skills. The organization also tries to make sure that its training activities always support improvement of its clinical services. To do this, training is focused on developing better interpersonal relations in provider-client interactions and on good counseling and quality care.
The Youth Education on Sexuality (YES) Project
This five-year project initiated in 2001 offers young people in India an opportunity to lead a healthy and satisfying sexual life, free from exploitation, fear, guilt, misconceptions and disease. FPAI started this project because it saw a real need to work with young people on sex and sexuality. There are over 300,000,000 young people in India between the ages of 10 and 24. Most of them know very little about sexuality and have few options to learn.
Based in Agra, the YES Project works to bring sexual and reproductive health information and services to young people between the ages of 10 and 24 in two areas. The project currently covers about 300 villages. In the first year, the project provided information on sexual and reproductive health and rights to about 5,000 young people. Over 4,000 newly married and young married couples were given sexuality education and services. The project also maintains a resource center. With its emphasis on participation, youth in each village plan and organize their own programs with peer assistance.
Dr. Puri would like to share information with colleagues in other states and other organizations about these activities and how some of FPAI successes could be adapted to their activities.
