Tata Steel today felicitated the women health volunteers for project Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI). The ‘Sahiya Saathi Samman’ was organized at the Seraikela Community Hall, Seraikela-Kharsawan District. Mr Chhavi Ranjan, Deputy Commissioner, Seraikela-Kharsawan graced the occasion as the Chief Guest.

On the first day of the two day event, a total of 168 women community health volunteers (Sahiyas/ASHAs and Sahiya Saathis/ASHA Saathis), were felicitated for significantly contributing to the project MANSI, in parts of Jharkhand and Odisha.

Exhorting the role of Sahiyas/ASHAs in MANSI, Mr Chhavi said “You all are inspiration for us. What you as Sahiya’s can do, we can’t”. He called upon the Sahiyas to get united and fight malnutrition also apart from infant mortality and maternal morbidity. He further said that District Administration would extend all possible help for making MANSI a success in the entire Saraikela- Kharsawan district.

Launched in Seraikela block of Jharkhand, in 2009, MANSI has drastically reduced the Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) by 61.2% and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by 63.1% in the block over a period of five years. Buoyed by the results, MANSI was later scaled up—from 167 pilot villages to 1,686 villages of Jharkhand and Odisha. It now covers a massive 2.2 lakh households in 12 blocks across Jharkhand and Odisha.

The event also witnessed the launch of MANSI’s application software designed to run on mobile phones/tablets. `Operation Sunshine’. The application software will empower MANSI Project staff to follow up high-risk newborn babies and pregnant mothers, enable visibility of training of women health volunteers and help in mapping high-priority areas deserving special focus on battling infant mortality and maternal morbidity.

`Hands That Rock The Cradle’, a compilation of 24 exemplary cases on HBNCC was also launched during the event. The cases span across all the 12 project blocks and depict how Sahiyas/ASHAs used their learning and presence of mind to save the lives of mothers and children, even in the most critical circumstances and adverse surroundings.

MANSI, a public-private-partnership involves Tata Steel, National Health Mission (NHM), American India Foundation (AIF) and SEARCH (Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health) and capacitates community-level women health volunteers in Home Based Neonatal Child Care (HBNCC).

Dr SN Jha, Civil Surgeon, Saraikela – Kharsawan, Dr Jujhar Majhi, DRCHO, Saraikela- Kharsawan, Mr Sourav Roy, Chief, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Tata Steel; Mr Niloy Mitter, Head, Health & Total Quality Management (TQM); Mr Amit Kumar, Project Manager, MANSI; Mr Anupam Sarkar, State Programme Manager, AIF were also present on the occasion, along with the District officials and Tata Steel’s CSR staff.

About Tata Steel
Tata Steel Group is among the top global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of 27.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) as on March 31, 2017. It is the world's second-most geographically-diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Group recorded a consolidated turnover of US $18.12 billion (INR 117,420 crore) in FY17. Tata Steel Group is spread across five continents with an employee base of nearly 70,000. Having bagged the Deming Application Prize and Deming Grand Prize for continuous improvement in 2008 and 2012 respectively, Tata Steel has now been recognised as the global ‘Industry Leader’ in ‘Steel category’ by Dow Jones Sustainability Index (2015). Besides being a member of the World Steel Climate Action Programme, Tata Steel has also been felicitated with several awards including the Prime Minister’s Trophy for the best performing integrated steel plant for 2013-14 (received in 2017), Best Risk Management by CNBC TV18 (2016), ‘Best-in-class Manufacturing’ award from TIME India (2016) and the ‘Most Ethical Company’ award from the Ethisphere Institute (2016), IIM Sustainability Award (2015), among several others.

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