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AGRI-CLINIC & AGRI-BUSINESS CENTER: AWARE has been approved as Nodal Training Institute (NTI) by MANAGE (Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare) to conduct Training in Agri-Clinic and Agri-Business for Unemployed Agricultural Graduates /Diploma Holders/similar qualification. The training is for 60 days at Pujyashri Madhavanji Agricultural Polytechnic, at Aswaraopet Campus, Khammam District.... Read more...
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Health and Research
In AWARE's strategy of total development, health has an integral place. The present study report mentioned here under is simply a review of AWARE’s successful experiments and experience in health care against the backdrop of its broader interventions.
  • Health parameters specially are undermined through adversity. The incidence of maternal death during childbirth is high as are infant and child mortality. In the absence of the cushioning effect of minimum health and nutritional wellbeing, even minor   diseases easily acquire the momentum of epidemics causing preventable loss of life. Life expectancy among the Tribal population where AWARE elected to work was barely 40 (as compared to an average of 54.4 estimated in 1980 for India) which is a comment on the health backwardness of the region.
  • AWARE realized with its experience that unless the potential of the human being for whom the development process is intended is itself released, there could only be a dismal gap between the proclaimed egalitarian objectives and the inequitable reality of development. To help unleash their power and potential, AWARE decided on a process of empowerment of people through social education and awareness. AWARE would jolt the people out of their apathy and try to mainstream the developmental outcast groups in psychological as well as material terms.
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  • The welfare of women and children and of the community has a strong health  dimension. It is this realization that is behind the health promotion endeavors of AWARE. Its health philosophy designated by the words “Jeevana Shravanti” which means life's flow. AWARE looks upon health as a continuous life sustaining force, a concept that is difficult to sell in a milieu where actual rather than probable sickness decides the merit of medical consultation and treatment.
    AWARE's strengths arise mainly from its human rights approach to health. AWARE views health as a legal right of the people and not as service or charity rendered unto them. It also perceives health as a fundamental duty.
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  • Health Care at the doorstep of poor was a successful effort achieved by AWARE in the last 35 years. Dr.Madhavan Chairman of AWARE said: “It is not enough that we develop knowledge, but what we need is wisdom. It is not enough if our minds are developed, our heart should also develop. THE HEART OF THE EDUCATION IS, EDUCATING THE HEART”.
AWARE has worked in the various areas of health and research like

AWARE Community Health Centre (CHC) for Leprosy Patients - Naidupet

  • The CHC at Naidupet focuses on the problem of leprosy. It is not a feeding place for the leprosy affected, or a centre for their free treatment, boarding and lodging. Its emphasis is more on creating an understanding and acceptance of the disease through education, survey, detection, treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy cases and of their families. A receptive, sensitive and constructive climate is created for facing leprosy with knowledge and a sense of responsibility, and not compassion alone. In AWARE's terms, rehabilitation does not mean creation of leprosy colonies but restoring the leprosy patients to their villages and society with the full knowledge, understanding and acceptance of the village.
  • The 'reclamation' process is based on the acceptance by the village of its joint moral responsibility to take care of every leprosy patients. Enough compassion and a sense of identification have been generated in the villages around Naidupet for them to contribute towards medication costs for treating leprosy, and to imbibe and practice the message that the leprosy patient is not to be shunned or renounced.
  • These attitudinal changes did not come about overnight, AWARE's involvement with leprosy began quite by accident. One day, while driving along the road leading to Naidupet Dr. Madhavan noticed a group of families gathered together under a cluster of trees mourning over their burnt down huts and hamlets. Enquiries revealed that this is a common method of hounding out leprosy-affected families from any neighborhood.  
  • That is when AWARE decided to fight this process of exclusion by offering a facility where the hysterical fear of leprosy could be slowly and scientifically demonstrated to be unfounded. All leprosy is often not infectious and that only the lepramatous type is dangerously infectious are facts unknown to the vast majority of people. Among the identified cases, according to AWARE, only 15 percent are lepramatous. Most of the burnt out cases are not dangerous, and not every disfigured person is a conveyer of infection.
  • AWARE's uniqueness lies in the manner in which it chose to disseminate them through a demonstration. A health centre was set up jointly for the treatment of lepers and the general public, initially this effort misfired as the general patients refused to show up for consultation and care. AWARE then decided to demonstrate its beliefs more openly. It began to host meals cooked by leprosy patients. Public functions were held and festivals were celebrated at the centre where the city fathers and key public figures came and ate the food cooked by cured and noninfectious leprosy patients. AWARE staff and leprosy patients began to travel together and sit across the table for discussions and for meals. Disfigured but cured leprosy victims were appointed as watchmen, sweepers, watermen, compounders and medical aides at the centre. Gradually the general patients started attending the outpatient clinics. Eventually, they accepted inpatient care and soon the Naidupet CHC began conducting minor operations, deliveries, and offering other forms of domiciliary care to the general population.
  • For the able-bodied leprosy patients, an agricultural farm was set up on seven acres of land that is now self-sustaining. Sheep rearing, towel making and bandage cloth weaving are other trades through which leprosy patients have been effectively   rehabilitated. In this manner, about 100 patients have become self-reliant. AWARE does not stop its involvement with serving only the health needs of the patient. In the hamlets that have sprung up around the Naidupet campus, here are young men and women who are entering into marriage with one of the marrying partners being a leprosy victim. There are older couples whose children have left the colonies to get married, to stay in student hostels for further studies, or to work. AWARE’s helping hand is unmistakably present in most of these cases. AWARE’s more rewarding moments have come from a turnaround in the social acceptance by the community of leprosy victims. To quote an instance, residents of two AWARE villages invited some recovered leprosy patients and their families to settle down in those villages and they have purchased goats and started a new chapter in their lives.
  • In the treatment of leprosy AWARE is experimenting with alternate therapies. Magnet therapy has been introduced and a laboratory has been opened in the CHC to study its effect on the leprosy patients. AWARE is also exploring the efficacy of transcendental meditation in reducing mental stress among leprosy victims.
  • Motivation has been a key factor in the success of the Naidupet experiment. Cadres of health motivators were recognized to be of indispensable value by AWARE which set up education and training as integral parts of the CHC. To educate and motivate the community, the health centre relied not only on its own cadre but also on women's clubs (mahila mandalis), mothers clubs, religious singing groups (harijana mandalis), youth clubs and caste elders. The involvement to such a variety of groups reinforces AWARE's core message that the delivery of health care is not an exclusive function of the medical profession.
  • By 1999, entire 150 leprosy patients settled in their life. AWARE did not accept more new leprosy patients in spite of pressure and thus AWARE’s work with leprosy came to an end by 2006 but the CHC still functions as AWARE Hospitals serving all patients of the area.

AWARE Community Health Centre - Padkal

  • AWARE’s intensive action-oriented programs started at Amangal block of Mahaboobnagar district with Lambadi Tribes. During visit of Dr. Madhavan and Director of Australian community Aid Abroad to some Tribal villages, it is found that children have scabies, skin infection, diarrhea, both children and women were malnutrition.
  • Both Dr.Madhavan and Neil O Sullivan discussed with Tribal people and decided to introduce a community health program. Again, here instead of going to the preventive aspect it decided to address immediate problem of the curative. Training camps conducted on personal hygiene, consumption of clean water, good food with locally available food grains but Tribals were encouraged to grow kitchen garden and green leaves, beans and other vegetables. AWARE workers conducted “Give bath to your children” in every village, the program emphasized on bath, nail cutting, cleanliness of eyes and ears, medicines supplied for scabies and skin diseases. Tribal and Harijan women were recruited, trained and appointed as health guides.
  • In 1977, Dr. MM Butt a social activist and a medical doctor was appointed to conduct one room clinic in their Panchayat office where during morning hours they treated the patients and by afternoon they go to villages and conduct health education programs, and his wife who is a doctor later joined him .
  • In 1982, the landlords of the village donated 6 acres of land to AWARE and requested to construct a permanent building and make it as a hospital. In 1984 with a partial financial assistance of NOVIB Netherlands and Community Aid Abroad Australia, a 50-bed hospital was build. Tribals, Harijans, and other communities of the village contributed free labour and from 1985, this hospital was catering to the needs of 60 villages and over 80 patients used to visit every day. Regular training programs were held to train local maternity workers on hygiene method of deliveries.
  • One of the significant achievements of community health centre Padkal is total elimination of Anemia among the women and children. A powder was made in the CHC Padkal known as the Padkal powder(made from wheat, moong dal, milk powder, peanut powder and sesame) in sachets and distributed to the people. They were encouraged to make it as gruel and consume it every day. In the beginning for a month or two it was distributed free of cost, then next three months it was sold in 50% subsidy, after 6 months it was sold for full cost but advised people to make their own powder in their own houses. Along with this, they were encouraged to consume vegetables like bean, green leafy vegetables. It is significant to note there was tremendous change in the health of children and mother. Added to this, hygienic method of mid wives conducting deliveries stabilized the population and reduced child mortality.
  • Dr. Neera K Sohoni expresses her experience of Padkal Centre as follows : “During a visit to the centre in Padkal, a group of Tribal women health workers are seen around the campus. They have come for refresher training, which takes place every six months. They represent all age groups above the minimum requirement of 25 years. Seethamma was earlier a dai (midwife) and feels that her ignorance regarding hygiene and tetanus led to many more casualties, commonly arising from infection. With the knowledge and     expe­rience gained through AWARE, she is now able to prevent maternal and child deaths. Antenatal and postnatal care, nutrition, pre­vention of tetanus and other diseases through immunization, all these are better comprehended both by her and by the community who sponsored her for this re­fresher training.
  • Is there any visible im­pact of their work? Yes, their own personal lives are safer and cleaner, and their com­munities have upgraded their health status considerably. In most cases, as the women themselves contend, their functioning as health workers has the blessing and support not only of their villages and hamlets but also of their spouses.”

Community Health Centre - Chinnapuram

  • The turnaround in this traditional ap­proach came quite unexpectedly in one of AWARE's earliest health projects. Following a cyclonic disaster and fearing a cholera epidemic, AWARE undertook mass immuniz­ation. In addition, it set up a wayside clinic to treat hundreds to patients with a wide range of diseases directly attributable to the cy­clone such as palpitation, stiffness of legs, diarrhea, tendency to miscarry among women, loss of milk among lactating mo­thers and other overt and covert signs of trauma deprivation.
  • At the end of about four months, after the work arising from the cyclonic dislocation finished, when AWARE considered closing its health clinic the user population could not bear the thought. With their enthusiastic support AWARE decided to convert the clinic into a permanent community health centre. The Centre was formally inau­gurated by the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, almost a year later at Chinnapuram in Krishna district on 5th January 1979. Despite their depleted economic condition and meager incomes, the people contri­buted toward the partial maintenance cost of the centre. Thus, at the behest of the community, a one-time emergency relief operation converted into a sustained health activity.
  • Even after this happened, AWARE did not impose a preventive bias on the health centre's activities. It focused its efforts primarily on curative care which was the felt need of the community and which commands high visibility. As a doctor atta­ched to the health centre observed, "Here we experienced that the community's pre-­eminent health need is for curative care and cannot be dismissed as irrelevant." Sub­sequently AWARE slowly expanded the scope of the program to include the preventive aspects as well.
  • Along with its scope, the program coverage also expanded. Using the Chinnapuram centre as the base camp, a mobile clinic program was developed because of which every village within a radius of 20 kilometers was visited every alternate day.
  • Gradually, the centre started addressing the key public health problems in the 15 villages within its jurisdiction with a view of eliminating the causes of ill-health rather than merely curing disease. Field analysis led to the conclusion that scabies, pyoder­ma, herpes, diarrhea and amoebiasis were the more common diseases that occurred due to water pollution, and consumption of unsafe water. Diseases arising from severe under nutrition were common in about 90 percent of the children. Around 37 percent of the female population suffered from anemia.
  • Recognizing that many of the health com­plaints in the population were the outcome of unsafe water, creating an awareness of the benefits as well as sources of clean water became the focus of preventive ac­tion. AWARE realized that its own responsi­bility lay in educating the people on the merits of clean water and environment. The actual task of creating the sources of clean water and environmental sanitation facilities would be best left to the government. Never­theless, by pressuring the local government to dig wells and build drinking water tanks and drainage systems. AWARE ensured that every village in the Chinnapuram health centre area has a source of clean drinking water as well as drainage facilities.
  • In the four years since its inception, the Chinnapuram Community Health Centre has treated around 80,000 patients. The people themselves, apart from donating the initial cost of purchasing the land on which the centre stands, have contributed a sum of over 1 Lakh towards the cost of medi­cines. This is evidence of the community’s continued belief in the efficacy of the ser­vices rendered by the health centre.
  • The health canvas of AWARE is spread over several campuses. Chinnapuram is possibly the earliest and the remotest, being over 400 kilometers from the state's capital-Hyderabad.

AWARE Boat Hospital Jeevana Shravanti at Kunavaram and base hospital at Jaggaram

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  • In 1983, Dr.Madhavan along with many AWARE workers was working for relief of Godavari floods. His boat was anchored at Kakisanuru Tribal village for the night halt. Dr. Madhavan slept in the boat and early morning he was awakened by loud cries of the women of the village. He was shocked and thought there might be a wild animal attack. When he came out, he has seen a dead mother. He enquired the cause and came to know that its Tribals custom to keep woman who is about to give birth to a child in a place away from village called  Kidu Paka and no one goes near to her until delivery is over except one or two old women called as vizzu (witch doctor). Throughout the night, the women could not deliver the child due to complications and early morning the mother died along with her child. This was the cause of women’s crying. The tribals felt some evil power took over the women and caused the death.
  • The first question Dr.Madhavan asked them is “where is the doctor?  Whole village was silent” and answered stating that they  cannot expect any doctors or medical treatment in such a remote forest village. Quickly Dr. Madhavan answered if government cannot build a hospital we all will do it ourselves. But the Tribal women questioned the availability of the doctor as it is not the hospital building but it is the availability of the doctor to live such a remotest Tribal village is the problem. Then Dr.Madhavan sadly introspected what could be the solution and birth of boat hospital came into his mind.
  • If innovative methods are a yardstick, AWARE's boat hospital or floating CHC operating out of Kunavaram village is a winner. In the rugged Bison Hill range, on either side of the river Godavari, AWARE has a novel strategy for reaching health care to the Koyas and Konda Reddis—two key tribal groups. Living in 300 odd villages along the river, these  tribals have been boycotted for decades both psychologically and in terms of service infrastructure. There are neither roads nor any other means of easy access through the Bison Hill terrain. The only communication possibility and one which AWARE grabbed eagerly was the mobility offered by the river. It decided to set up a floating hospital.
  • The Government of India and the state government were per­suaded by AWARE to finance the cost of a mobile health program located on a launch. The hospital floats on the river every day. Beginning at 7 a.m. every day, it touches five centres on one of the banks each day. The medical crew halts overnight at a place called Kolhur. The boat has facilities for minor operations, inpatient care, and a laboratory for urgent diagnostic work. There is a doctor on board who is aided by the Assistant nurse midwife and a com­pounder. The crew is efficient and knowled­geable in boat maintenance and repair. A talented cook turns out delicious local cuisine. Over the years, Prakash Rao one of the sarangs (boatmen) has acquired enough medical savvy through formal and informal learning to be engaged as a para­medic. He had the chance to see one of his children being delivered in the boat hospital and that too, in the midst of a fuming Godavari.
  • The boat berths on the riverside at a designated place. Outpatient services are delivered on the boat except to the aged and the infirm that are unable to come person­ally and are therefore are visited in their homes by the roving medical team. The tribals come down the slopes to get immunization, first aid, prenatal and postnatal check-ups or general health services. Routinely, before the outpatient clinic is held, the doctor and his crew climb up the steep hillside to a health 'shelter' or 'outpost'. Here, some of those who live within the jurisdiction of the outpost (8 villages) gather to chat with the doctor and his team consisting of village health worker, the motivator, the mid-wife. AWARE's development project staff, leaders of mahila mandalis and youth mandalis, caste elders, and a mix of women, men and children—all sit together to go over any pressing problem in health or other fields. Women speak freely of their hassles not only with the lack of medical facilities but also about  socio-economic programs, the availability of loans, the problems of debt, irrigation or seed supply, repair of dwellings, cattle, poultry, and pre­valence of malnutrition.
  • At one of these meetings at Sriramgiri, a paramedical worker began with a discussion of unhygienic foods. He went on to discuss scabies and how the lack of personal hygiene causes it. The benefits of immunization against polio and other diseases were emphasized next and finally, he spoke of smokeless cooking stoves. The presentation was participative and encouraged those assembled to supplement the saying.
  • The boat repeats this shelter drill ten times during a 48-hour period. Through each shelter or outpost, the population of eight villages is expected to be covered, in all, through 10 outposts, 80 villages or a total tribal population approximating 40,000 is intended to be reached. Each shelter is manned by a paramedical worker and is regularly visited by the floating health cen­tre. Bicycles and mopeds are being slowly added to ensure mobility and outreach for the health shelters. A country boat is also provided at each health shelter for trans­porting patients to the base hospital at Kunavaram in case of an emergency. With four beds, a labour room, a minor operation theatre, a clinical laboratory and a training centre, the base hospital is equipped to act as a referral centre.
  • Each of the 80 villages has a trained village health worker to meet the first aid needs of health and family welfare services. In addition, a trained midwife is expected to be available to each of the 80 villages. The recruitment of midwives has not been easy. At present, there are 30 midwives serving 80 villages on a cluster basis. AWARE is conscious of this shortfall and is making a vigorous effort to fill this gap.
  • The two teams of doctors oversee the health shelters, supervise the midwives, village health workers, and paramedical workers and manage the floating health facility and base hospital. Assisting the doctors are Assistant nurse midwives who are locally recruited women with six months' of training with AWARE. There is also provision for a health program officer (a position yet to be filled) with a background of health educ­ation to assist the health education activities in the Kunavaram project area.
  • There are additional contingencies, which one must learn to cope with. Over a year ago, when the base hospital and referral centre set up by AWARE at Kunavaram, it stood submerged under 20 feet high water, the Doctor and his team plied the boat as a major rescue and flood relief operation. AWARE won formal recognition in terms of a state award for helping to rescue over 20,000 stranded victims of flood. Soon after the flood waters receded, the team that helped AWARE earn the award was engaged in reclaiming the health records and equip­ment from the water-soaked CHC. A year later, there are no visible signs, nor sorrow over what was lost or what could have been. Along with the tribal hamlets and the rest of the landscape, the CHC stands resurrected in total defiance of nature's intimidating power.
  • In 1992, AWARE built 50 beds base hospital at Jaggaram near Kunavaram. The boat Hospital known as Jeevana Shravanti and base hospital is in function since 1984. First five years government of India provided grants for boat and buildings and 75% recurring expenditure. Since 1990 AWARE is managing this hospitals with its own funds and funds contributed by the patients.


Community Health Centre Kamalapur -Mohana Block in Gajapathi District of Orissa State

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  • In the year 1989 in one of the public enquiry conducted by AWARE in the Mohana Block with regards to Tribal women, the tribal’s from 40 villages undertook health program as they are far away from any health centre. Every year a few people die of cerebral malaria since it is a malaria endemic region and the nearest hospital is some 100s of kilometer away. Even these hospitals do not have doctors, medicines except a building and a watchman.
  • These local tribals offered 10 acres of land and free labour to build their hospital and Dr.Madhavan agreed and acquired 10 acres of land at Kamalapur village Mohana block Gajapathi district in Orissa state and almost after a year and half the construction of community health centre started, it took two more years to complete the community health centre building.
  • This new community health centre of AWARE was formally inaugurated in 1998 by doctors, nurses, and health workers; health motivators started their work from 1999 and this health centre covers an area of 40 villages consisting majorly of Tribal’s. As Orissa is known for spiritual culture and people are highly devotional to Lord Jagannath this centres architecture is built like a Puri Jagannath temple. Also in the campus of the hospital, there is a mosque, church, and  Buddhist pagoda (as large numbers of Tibetan refugee also live in the area).
  • All these centres are engaged in promot­ing a similar concept of community health. Each centre (except the one at Kunavaram) has a 30 bed base hospital and the services rendered include:
    • Curative health care
    • Preventive services including health education
    • Training of community health workers and paramedical staff to serve as health educators, and to work in the health outposts.
    • Health and nutrition camps

Health and Nutrition Camps

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  • Each community health centre (CHC) has its own focal activity— environmental sanitation in the case of Chinnapuram and Narayanapuram, leprosy in the case of Naidupet, and nutrition and immunization, in case of Jaggaram and Kunavaram and training of health workers and health education in the case of Padkal and Kamalapur.
  • The practical experience and knowledge gained from treatment and survey work serves as a useful resource for developing health education and training materials, which reflect the local health context and needs peculiar to the project area. Health education and training, curative care, and diagnostic work thus reinforce each other and are seen as a continuum.
  • The training program aims to create a team of health workers from among the illiterate tribal and harijan women and occa­sionally men. From among them, those who meet the criteria eventually serve as assistant nurse midwives (ANMs). The team of workers include mid wives (Traditional birth attendants), village health workers and paramedical workers. The major thrust of the training is on preventive health care. Mother and child health, nutrition, vaccination and sanitation are the main areas of concentration.
  • Unlike some private voluntary agencies who take a guarded stance on the worth of health camps. AWARE regards these as effective rallying points for promoting its health objectives. Camps organized around the prevailing priority health needs such as, nutrition, vegetable growing, clean water, diarrhea prevention and treatment, personal hygiene, eye care, vaccination, identification and treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy. The camps are run by AWARE's medical staff aided by the general (nonmed­ical) project staff, and organized with the cooperation of the village associations. When such bodies are traditionally en­gaged in broader development endeavours like in health care, it has the practical effect of establishing health concerns as an integral part of development and as one of the responsibilities of the community.
  • AWARE is convinced that it is only when health programs are backed and im­plemented by the people that the goal of health by the people, and for the people can materialize. AWARE aspires eventually to create self-sustaining health societies, aptly expressed by its idealistic slogan 'health without a doctor’ in pursuit of that goal. AWARE places as much stress on the healthy as the sick. Recognizing that dis­ease prevention and health promotion are two sides of a coin, AWARE spotlights pre­vention as a fundamental ingredient of its community health programs.
  • In disseminating knowledge for prevention of ill-health, AWARE's democratic bias is clearly seen, its belief is that medical and health knowledge should not be concen­trated in a few hands or rest exclusively with the professionals. Primary or basic know­ledge of health can and must be shared by the entire community. In AWARE's communi­cation channel thus, the message does not stop at the level of the community health worker. It has to transcend the worker and be absorbed, imbibed and internalized by the community. AWARE is also trying to instill a sense of accountability to the health worker for the state of health of the com­munity. Such accountability takes its inspiration from the practice in ancient China where the doctor was paid as long as his client was healthy and lost his pay when the client fell sick. Health education, monitoring and care, and improved health status of the people thus become interde­pendent outcomes of the community health endeavour.
  • De-addiction is a prime target of AWARE's health work. Liquor has been the bane of Indian life. AWARE has trained rural volunteers particularly women to stimulate concerted action against alcohol­ism. The economic and psychological advantages from not drinking are sworn to most vociferously by the women who see a distinct upgrading in their status.
  • Linkages between health and develop­ment and the 'economics' of health are fostered by AWARE in all its operations in various ways. The involvement of the medical discipline with the process of development is the crux of AWARE methodology.
  • AWARE, like many of its cohort agencies, believes that health and life are  interdepend­ent and integrated. Factors that affect the quality of health range from food, shelter, work, and education to general living con­ditions. All these must develop synergistically for the people to become and remain healthy.
  • AWARE's conceptual as well as practical strength lies in rooting health and develop­ment functions firmly in people. People's support and accountability for their health is a product of their own understanding or awareness. Creating that awareness is the core function and once awareness is created the spectrum of health action that follows has to run the entire gamut from prevention and treatment to health primitive work.
  • Knowledge (viewed as program in­telligence and not only awareness) has a key role to play at various stages in AWARE's health program. A convincing outcome of AWARE's health approach has been an attitudinal change in the population it works with. Within a very short period, Tribal and Harijan communities have cast off their suspicions of modern medicine and eagerly sought help in up­grading their health status. This change, however, has not meant any disruption to the conventional resources or methods of health care. AWARE deliberately does not discourage use of traditional medicine. It is sensitive to the wealth of wisdom and de­monstrated success of reliable primitive  re­medies.

AWARE Multi Super Specialty Hospitals -  Hyderabad

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  • In 1998, Chairman AWARE was given a civic reception at Machlipatnam, the city fathers represented that the district has large number of cancer cases. Therefore, they requested AWARE to take up Cancer Hospital. Also during 1990 relief and rehabilitation, cyclone work in Krishna District one of the problems discussed was cancer. Almost 1%of cancer patient of the state come from Krishna district to the government cancer hospital at Hyderabad and it was counted that 1 in 17 cancer patients are from Krishna District, women being the worst victims.
  • AWARE appointed a scientific team to study the cause and found that the people in this region use high pesticides and chemical fertilizers for their rice crop twice a year.  The first action of AWARE was to propagate to the farmers the dangers of chemical fertilizers and the need to reduce the same. However, the farmers have reached highest stage of destruction to their soil and health. In view of the request of all sections of the people AWARE decided to establish state-of-the-art Cancer Hospital at Hyderabad. Expert medical team was drawn to study and advice establishment of such hospital.
  • On the Silver Jubilee year of AWARE, a 300 bed Multi Super Specialty AWARE Hospital was started at Hyderabad. Though it was started as a cancer hospital AWARE expanded it to Multi-Super Specialty Hospital with 50 specialized departments with state-of-the-art equipment, renowned medical professionals, well-trained paramedical staff providing 24 hours service with commitment and dedication. 
  • AWARE Hospitals was built on seven and half acres of land in the city of Hyderabad with beautiful ambience and unique architecture. It is a spiritual environment. A unique meditation hall at the crown of the Hospital building helps mind strengthening. Thus, the Hospital provides both the mind and body healing to patients, making the AWARE Hospitals a temple for the soul and hospital for the body, hence called “Shanthivanam”. An 18 feet statue of Bhagwan Dhanwantri buildings named after great Indian Medical Masters like Sushruta, Charaka, Nagarjuna indicate our tributes to the rich health heritage from times immemorial. AWARE regularly conducts various Health Mahasabhas, campaigns, rallies and training camps to create health awareness, focusing on seasonal diseases as well as diseases like cancer etc. People are always part of AWARE health awareness movement. Its program covers 6000 villages as of now.
  • AWARE Hospitals – Shanthivanam conducts free medical camps every month to provide the services of very senior and experienced doctors to the poor and needy in rural areas. During these camps, more than 20 specialists accompanied by Para-medical and technical staff look into the medical problems of more than 1000 people and guide them with free consultation in each camp. This program is supported by National Health Promotes Network, Cheer the Child Foundation and AWARE Health and Research foundation besides over 2000 rural health workers and 50,000 AWARE volunteers.

AWARE Tent Hospitals



  • Since 1977 AWARE is involved regularly in providing relief and rehabilitation to the victims of natural calamities like floods (Andhra and Orissa state), the Cyclones (Andhra and Orissa states) and earthquakes (Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttaranchal). AWARE has trained medical and Para-medial who reach these areas and establish wayside clinics and provide medical assistance. Then immediately using the long canvas AWARE builds 30 beds tent hospitals where impatient care is provided including maternity services and minor operations.
  • The tent hospitals function as referral hospital providing medical services for two to three months until people recover from trauma and post calamity diseases. The patients are brought into the tent hospitals through AWARE ambulances, this is one of the quick services AWARE provides during all natural calamities.
  • Health care at the doorstep of poor was a successful effort achieved by AWARE in the last 35 years. Dr.Madhavan Chairman of AWARE said: “It is not enough that we develop knowledge, but what we need is wisdom. It is not enough if our minds are developed, our heart should also develop. The heart of the education is, educating the heart".
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