Rally For Health , 2011

Another very successful clinic at the Ghagandeep tent slum in Marble City. Stayed tuned for pics! Tomorrow the Rally For Health gets back to the road en route to the Balaji temples

Ganthiya Panchayat Bhawan Health camp Inaugurated by Merta city Chief Medical officer Dr RK Tanwar

Grand welcome at Osiyan

Dr Chetan & Dr Adam at Ganthiya

Slum health camp at Kishangarh near Gagandeep theater 

Auto rickshaw 

Dr Robert Montana at Osiyan

Dr Chetan & Ranjit

Inaugural Day

Ready to ride...!

Dr Andrew at Ganthiya, Rajasthan

Dr Tim at Kishangarh 

The Team 

Rally For Health is a professional and cultural exchange between medical care providers from the US and India that brings free mobile clinics to under-serviced areas in India. For added adventure, each team will tackle the back roads of rural India on the country’s most celebrated mode of transport - the auto rickshaw.

We are dedicated to providing medical services to under-serviced areas; educating on an important public health issue, tobacco, and how it can affect people’s health; and raising money for two great NGOs: Doctors For You and Cross Cultural Care (C3), which both provide humanitarian work in the urban slums and rural villages of India and beyond.
Come with us on a unique adventure-with-a-cause from Mumbai to New Delhi. American/Indian medical teams will live, work, and travel together for four weeks as they volunteer their medical services in the slums of Mumbai, take an overnight train to the blue city of Jodhpur, ride camels to a village to offer medical care to the people of Rajasthan, and ride like maniacs on their own auto rickshaws to all points in between.

Rally For Health , 2011

In a joint effort, some doctors from USA and Doctors for You, India, a Humanitarian NGO, will go on a month-long auto rickshaw rally across six states to create awareness about the dangerous effects of tobacco. The participants will cover more than 100 towns and cities in these states. India is ranked first in smokeless consumption of tobacco globally. Dr Ravikant Singh from Doctors for You said: “About 275 million Indians are in the habit of consuming tobacco in several forms. The rally for health intends to make people aware of the consequences of smoking and consuming tobacco. People are not unaware. They just ignore.” Doctors for You, a recipient of the British Journal Award, along with the doctors from USA will go around the states in the next 25 days. The doctors will talk about the harmful effects of tobacco, hold one-on-one discussions, group discussions, technical paper presentations, screening of specialized movies, enact plays and skits. “We will also have competitions like poster making and distribute pamphlets and posters,” added Dr Ravikant. According to recent the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, about 275 million people in India are addicted to tobacco, and one-third of them use it in smokeless form. India is the greatest producer of areca nut, producing about 3,30,000 million tons a year (nearly half of global areca nut production), and most of them are consumed within the country. The gutka industry in India has grown from small beginnings forty years ago to a multi-billion rupee industry with nearly 375 brands, of which, nearly 100 are located in Mumbai. It is estimated that gutka and paan masala worth around Rs10,000 crore is sold in the country annually. Due to its low cost, easy availability, attractive packaging, aggressive marketing, innocent adolescents and youths are becoming addicted to them. In India, over 5 million children under 15 are addicted to gutka. Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, head and neck cancer surgeon from Tata hospital who has also been actively spearheading a campaign against tobacco products, said, “Unfortunately, most cancer patients in India come to us when they are in their last stages. Many of them are young. This happens because most of the people start chewing and consuming tobacco products while in school.” Dr Chaturvedi is also part of the rally.

The DFY was one of the first organizations to respond to the SOS of people of Bihar. Armed within infrastructural support from the Indian Railways and in association with international NGOssuch as Mercy Malaysia, the DFY launched a massivemedical relief & rehabilitation operation. Scores of volunteer doctors were mobilized from all around the country.
In the first phase of operation, the organization targeted the worst affected districts. In the second phase, the doctors undertook rehabilitative work after the floodwaters had recessed. In total, DFY organized around 300 mobile health camps over a period of 6-months where more than 1.3 lakh patients were treated. In addition, around food, clothes, medicines, waterproof tents, cooking utensils & water purification plants were mobilized through systematic awareness and information campaigns all over the country. The DFY also partnered with the media to create awareness against the possibility of an epidemic in the wake of the floods. The work done by DFY was highly appreciated by people, Infact, Dr.Ravikant Singh, who spearheaded this operation was conferred the SAARC Youth Award 2009 for his outstanding contributions during the Bihar floods.

4th month of flood relief work

D4U, Mercy Malasia & Dept. of Social Studies(Delhi Univ)