Health, Hygiene & Education

“Gifting every child a healthier tomorrow” is the ethos behind the Child Health Development Program (CHDP) run by Bosch Limited. Our focus is to determine and improve the health conditions of children studying in government schools between 6 and 15 years of age. As part of this program, Bosch has adopted 230 government schools, which are located within 30 km radius of its Bangalore, Bidadi and Kumbalgod Plant facilities. In 2010, a community survey was carried out by Bosch in and around its Plant location in Bangalore. This survey revealed the need for a dedicated initiative to help improve and maintain the good health condition of children studying in government schools following which the CHDP was launched. Currently, 70,000 students are being benefited through this program.

Bosch conducts free health diagnostic camps at the government schools it has adopted, which provide complete health screening of all the children by a team of general physicians, paediatricians, ophthalmologists and pedodontic dentists. We also provide basic treatment for children who are in need of dental scaling, vision checks, and provision of spectacles and issue of eye drops, ear drops and general medicine. Check-ups are repeated annually for all the children.

A unique feature of this program is providing post-screening referral arrangements to ensure that treatment doesn’t stop at the first level of our diagnostic camps. Ailing children are referred to specialists with their parents’ consent and are taken to hospitals for further diagnosis and treatment by our NGO partners and volunteers. Support is also extended through Mobile Dental Vans.

Bosch has identified government schools that lack clean and separate toilet facilities for boys and girls. Bosch has not only funded the construction of 50 new toilets at these schools, but also facilitated water-line and sewage connections for them to become functional.

All these new toilets receive maintenance oversight from Bosch for the first 6 months after construction. Besides, dysfunctional toilets are made functional.

We also go a step further in inculcating the requisite hygiene behavior among students for them to do their bit in keeping the toilets tidy and usable at all times for their own benefit.

Most number of government-school going children come from economically and socially disadvantaged communities. A high rate of school dropout is seen among them before completing upper primary education. The quality of learning achievement is not always entirely satisfactory even in the case of child who complete elementary education.

The need to address inadequacies in retention, residual access, particularly of un-reached children, and the questions of quality are the most compelling reasons, which made us to supplement the schools’ initiatives in the following ways:

• Setting Computer Labs in the Schools with software, AMC, Tables, Chairs, UPS and a Computer Teacher
• Simulating Science teaching through ‘Mobile Science Lab’, ‘Lab in a Box’ and ‘Lab on a Bike’
• Providing exclusive English teachers for Spoken English classes and interactive learning kits
• Training on soft skills and life skills through Value Education program

Mobile Science Lab catalytic channel that is fun, engaging and interactive, aimed to raise awareness among disadvantaged children and teachers of the value of learning - with a focus on science. Each MSL travels to doorstep of remote schools with 200+ hands-on science models covering a wide range of topics in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Math for Class 5 through 10.

Lab in a Box refers to sets of 10 boxes are filled to the brim with experiments on Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics, covering more than 70 concepts in total for the Lab in a Box (LIB) Program. A rotation scheme is followed for the distribution of LIB boxes.