With the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (RVPSP division) in 2007-8, MIEF created a repository of all the major available data (then) on women and adolescent girl child health issues with specific reference to anemia and adolescent health.
This has been important as a theme for us for multiple reasons:
- Girls’ health is talked about a lot lesser than we would like, adolescents undergo a lot of mental and physical changes
- Many times adolescent health gets ignored because the children are not talking about the issues much themselves.
- We also have a larger tendency to believe in age old home remedies and solutions as opposed to learning scientific reasons because physical and mental health especially for this important age group.
The reason we thought of this old project today, was to bring about the point that even now, with so much data available (on the internet) we are not sure of how much of that data is authentic and often resort to non-scientific literature looking for ‘cures’ without consulting with real doctors or scientific literature.
While the project was old, it made us think now, that these issues are still important and it is worthwhile to get connected to experts and professionals to talk these through and share the information to a larger audience. And maybe that’s already something we can take away for future work.
Meanwhile, we suggest you talk to your adolescent children and ensure you visit the doctors and professionals to keep them mentally and physically healthy!