at Grassroots
To reach the message to the very last person the Trust launched its program called Vasantham. It is a program where the educator from trust talks to the people in the community right at his door step. This was targeted mainly at the villages. Although basic amenities like food, water, electricity & of course tobacco are available in adequate measures, health consciousness & health care is scarce. They seem to be comfortable with “ ad hoc existence”. Philosophically it sounds good but in practice not so. In that context the last thing they care is for cancer. We have to die, if it is with cancer , I rather remain undiagnosed & exit form this world – they had to say.
It is not that in villages incidences of cancer are lower , it is only that they are diagnosed less. The trust saw that the usage of tobacco was nearly 100% among them & it started as early as 5 years of age. Even more shockingly the parents themselves initiated that some of them. At every village it went there was at least one person affected with cancer. And at each village one person would break down relating how miserably the affected guy died. When it came to tobacco they only blamed the government for making it available. This is but an excuse. Gutka, which is banned by the government, is freely available here.
The program took off from the Karai Gounden panchayat in Annur near Coimbatore.