This post is part of our series, Global Conversations on Newborn Health in India. Join the conversation on Impatient Optimists and Healthy Newborn Network as we explore the pressing need - and what our partners are doing to address the need - to save the lives of newborns in India.
Nurul Alim (36 year-old farmer): “Till such time I have a son, produksun chalu rahega [production will be on].”
Susheela Devi (50 year-old mother-in-law): “What’s all this fuss about having a baby? I have had seven. Bhagwan ki den hai aur bhagwan hi lega [They are God’s gift and if they die, it’s God’s will].”
Mila Devi (19 year-old housewife): “I wish I could talk to my husband, I wish I could go for a long walk, I wish… Dum ghut jata tha [I feel stifled]!”
Shanti (28 year-old ASHA, or frontline health worker): “I wanted to get out of the house… and then I realized that I could do something for my community. And of course, I don’t mind the extra money either!”
Rehanna Begum (26 year-old housewife): “There are new things happening in the world outside. I want my children to be a part of all that.”
These are some of the voices I have been hearing on visits to the villages of Bihar in India in my work with the BBC World Service Trust. They are voices of despair, hope, helplessness, and confidence. These voices echo the challenges and opportunities for changing behaviors and improving health, including maternal and newborn health, in this Indian state.
In search of insights into life in Bihar, I have noticed that every time we want an individual to change a behavior, he or she needs to overcome barriers steeped in tradition, norms, cultural practices, and belief in their own self-efficacy. They need to be empowered to change a behavior.
The BBC World Service Trust works to do this by using media and communications, to reduce poverty, promote human rights, and enable people to build better lives.
They create out-of-the-box solutions, reaching people wherever they are and creating content that really interests them through their mobile phones. This could be an interactive-voice-response-based certificate course for frontline health workers or interactive audio-visual toolkits installed on their phone software, or an entertaining drama that turns community groups into radio listening clubs.
The question that our audience is asking and we are trying to answer is: “Why should I do it?”
People are not interested in our health program. They are interested in their own lives – they want better livelihoods; they want their children to get a better education; they want entertainment; they want the latest mobile phones; and they want to patch their leaking roofs in the rainy season.
Even something as simple as popular Bhojpuri-language film songs could promote male involvement in safeguarding family health. We aim to make health information not just ubiquitous, but relevant to the lives of Nurul, Billu, Susheela, Shanti and more than 100 million other Biharis.