Our grade 9 student, Veruschka, recently went under 1m1b (one million for one billion) on a trip to UC Berkeley to present her project 'Suryanayak'. The opportunity to present our projects was for all students of the age 13-20 (grade nine to college), in front of two UC Berkeley professors, and even a mayor, who were the jury for our presentations. Veruschka won second prize for her presentation. The Berkeley professors were really amazed by her initiative and presentation.
Watch this youTube video for an insight on her project so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpvtGg2Azy8
SURYANAYAK (Heroes of Golden window) is aimed at creating a mass movement to train people on CPR, and specifically train ASHA workers (accredited social health activists employed by the government) on CPR.
" I chose this project is because after taking firsthand-data from the Emergency Medical Services of India itself, I got to know that the second most number of emergency calls in India (after pregnancy-related symptoms), were made in 2020-2021 to report cardiac arrests, and that 99% of Indians are not trained in CPR as per Times of India. 25% of total deaths each year occur because of cardiac arrests,
and the worst part is that most of these lives could be saved during the golden minutes or the first few minutes of a cardiac arrest through CPR performance. As per BBC, 9 out of 10 lives can be saved during a cardiac arrest through CPR. However, CPR education hasn't been implemented in India as of now, and I thought of training ASHA workers on it, as there is one ASHA worker per 1000 people in a village and teaching this substantial population would help create first responders in a medical emergency and save more lives. I selected Kolar district as my project area. This is 65 km from Bangalore and has a population of 4.8 lakh."
She formed a medical advisory board of Dr. Devishetty, founder of Narayana Health, 2 doctors from the district of Kolar, the DHO of Kolar, and DM (district magistrate) of Kolar. Veruschka also partnered with State Institute of Heath and Family Welfare (SIHFW), Government of Karnataka which has taken up “Skill for life, Save a Life” campaign to train people as first responders who can provide necessary first aid. She discussed her idea with them to train ASHA workers in Kolar and have now partnered up with the government scheme. She went for a field visit to Kolar with a questionnaire for the ASHA workers and nurses to know their current knowledge on first aid, and even mailed the ASHA workers' head for their syllabus in the status quo. I got to know that none of them are trained in CPR.
"First, I got trained in SIHFW, Bangalore for CPR first aid myself in order to carry out this project effectively. Then, I conducted a successful training session in Kolar in District Magistrate's office with 50 ASHA workers who I trained successfully with other master trainers on CPR and even conducted a test. And I have also conducted a fundraiser on Impact Guru where I have raised 1.9 lakh already to fund for training equipment such as mannequins, AV equipment, etc."
Fundraiser website: https://www.impactguru.com/fundraiser/help-one-million-one-billion-foundation
YouTube Channel with bytes from the ASHA workers after training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpvtGg2Azy8
