SUHAM

SUHAM Trust was found on 30th day of March 2007 by DHAN Foundation, a grassroots professional development institution in the country. The Trust was promoted with the membership of Kalanjiam Women Self Help Groups and Vayalagam Farmers Group. It aims to support and guide Kalanjiam and Vayalagam people institutions for carry out various medical, community health & nutrition and sanitation programmes benefiting poor households. The Trust focuses on preventive, promotive and curative programmes in addition to entitlement initiatives. Community health& nutrition and sanitation programmes covered under preventive and promotive programmes. The curative care programmes includes establishing primary and secondary care hospitals, referral services for tertiary care, philanthropic fund mobilisation for tertiary care treatment for needy people etc. The support to differently abled, widows, old-age and destitute through entitlement is the third wing of SUHAM.

The programme components are:

• Enabling self-health governance for sustenance of initiatives

• Facilitating behavioural changes through Behavioural Change Communication (BCC)

• Facilitating linkages with mainstream institutions

• Referral and case management towards early diagnosis

• Entitlement for eligible society

Objectives

Actively engage in poverty alleviation initiatives to improve the status and living conditions of poor people through health education and accessible, affordable and quality healthcare.

Mission

Enable the community through health education, affordable care and healthcare advancement towards sustained quality of life working directly and mainstream collaboration.

Vision

Demonstrate equality in quality healthcare and affordability for the poor.

Values

• Excellence: Quality work, Quality implementation and reaching Quality outcomes

• Grassroots action: Working with community directly and involves in capacity building of community representatives and staff to promote self-health governance towards ensuring quality of life of poor households

• Collaboration: Working with mainstream institutions and insurance sector towards addressing the poverty

• Innovation: Bringing technology and model on quality healthcare at affordability

• Enabling: Promoting governance and empowering them among the community to take care of health programmes and mainstream linkages to address the issues

• Transparency: Bringing clarity among the customers

Core beliefs

• Community participation and involvement in programme promotion and implementation only ensures grassroots development

• Behavioural changes of individuals/ society leads to sustainable changes in health outcomes among individual and society

• Convergence of civic initiatives especially health with themes would bring sustainable changes in the lives of poor

• Addressing context specific health issues would bring changes in the society rather than implementing common health programmes

• There would be higher utility rate and ensured intervention at grassroots level in community owned initiatives

• The efficiency of mainstream system would result more in partnership with development institutions

• Strongly believes on partnership with mainstream institutions rather than parallel programmes. Parallel programmes for supplementation or value addition through demonstration.