What a year! Many thanks to all who have helped us achieve so much in 2014 to help prevent non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory diseases.
We spent more time on impact measurement this year. We believe we have helped more than 150,000 people lead healthier lives in India —gaining us recognition from the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which highlighted Arogya World in their 10-year commemorative brochure and the Drucker Institute, which named us as a finalist for the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation.
We made great strides in our major program areas:
mDiabetes
Analysis of data from our mDiabetes initiative revealed that at least 15 percent of the text message recipients in India adopted or maintained four healthy behaviors simultaneously: they reported they exercised regularly, ate 2-3 fruits/day, ate 2-3 servings of vegetables/day, and avoided fried food.
mHealth 2.0
In 2014, Arogya World won its largest ever grant to date: $260,000 from Cigna Foundation for our mHealth2.0 program. We are fortunate and grateful to have such a great partner—one that extends support far beyond the financial. We have already begun work on the mHealth lifestyle intervention program with partners Emory University, Vignet, and Madras Diabetes Research Foundation.
Survey of 10,000 Women
This year we completed a 10-country survey of 10,000 women on the impact of NCDs, with significant support from partners Novartis, Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, American Cancer Society, UNICEF, PSI, Abt SRBI, and Jana. We presented the results at CGI in September, fulfilling a commitment we had made there in 2013.
- The Arogya Team at the UN in July (from left: Pamela Yih, Carrie Hutchison, Nalini Saligram, Rohini Bhatia, and Naina Saligram).
We held a side-event at the United Nations in July this year, to mark the 3-year UN Review of NCDs. This event was co-sponsored by the governments of the United States and Mexico, and gathered the perspectives of multiple stakeholders on the implications of the survey results in a post-2015 world. The final report, which includes a foreword by UN Women, is currently being distributed to UN Member States. We also published 10 videos of women’s NCD stories and several infographics highlighting key data points.
Healthy Workplaces
In 2014, our Healthy Workplace program continued to gain momentum. This November, we named 18 companies (up from 9 in 2013) as Healthy Workplaces in India, and brought on new partners in this effort. In conjunction with the award ceremony, we held a successful workshop on best practices earlier that day in Bangalore.
Schools
In March 2014, Arogya World made a commitment to Every Woman Every Child, the United Nations’ unprecedented effort to improve the health of women and children everywhere. Our commitment is to educate 10,000 school children (ages 11-13) about diabetes prevention through lifestyle change, over the next five years. Together with the Agastya Foundation and financial support from individual donors, we’ve already started rolling out the program to 2,000 children in rural South India.
We also expanded our community this year with a successful Chicago fundraiser event in May (which drew 125 attendees and 6 corporate sponsors) and through our extensive social media efforts.
Our board members were also very busy advocating on behalf of the fight against chronic disease around the world, and were invited to speak at many events including:
- Global Health Symposium organized by Chicago Council on Global Affairs (Chicago, March 6)
- CORE Group meetings (Washington, D.C., October 16-17)
- IDCA Conference (Chicago, October 19)
- Cigna’s Physician Leadership Meeting (Nashville, November 20)
- World Cancer Congress (Melbourne, December 3-6)
Many thanks to all for a wonderful year! We are so grateful for your support and your help in preventing chronic disease around the world. Happy Holidays!