Development Action Society

Development Action Society (DAS) is a woman based organization and is committed towards the development of marginalized women and children through education, health, protection and livelihoods. DAS was established in 1989 with the motto of development of underprivileged women and children, regardless of their race, creed or religion; changing their world with the right kind of opportunities. DAS initiated to support and strengthen the capacity of marginalized women and children in the sub-urban disadvantaged population of South and Southeast Kolkata from 1995 onwards. To fulfill our mission, DAS emphasizes on need-based interventions, serve as a resource for the field and enter partnership for funding to support priority-based projects. In the last eleven years DAS has made in-depth inroads in education, health, child protection and vocational training for sustainable transformation. Since 1995 our assistance has reached 4922 children in the age group of 3-18 years and has mainstreamed 3165 out of school children in the local govt. formal schools till 2011. Presently 1003 children are continuing in DAS run NFE centers, after school coaching support to 387 children s, 109 children parliament representatives, 258 active children group members. DAS also covers 8074 patients for access to health services. DAS has also reached to 33 women with adult literacy programme. Moreover, DAS has formed and capacitated 95 women group members and 88 Child Protection Committee members. , Apart from this DAS also celebrates:- , Annual Cultural Programme where children demonstrate their drastic performance based on their hidden potentialities through the event of dance, songs, dramas, rhymes, poems, puppet shows and many others. , International Child Rights Week (October 14-20) where children perform throughout the week based on awareness generation on Child Rights Issues. During the Child Rights Week children performed two plays on Child Rights, Child Trafficking and Right to Education and their street play in front of Silver Spring were also acknowledged for their efforts. , Children s Day Celebration (14th October) where children play a huge role in Bal Utsav an awareness generation initiative on Child Rights Issues organized by DAS, , World Health Day (April 7) an awareness generation initiative based on health & hygiene in schools and the area of intervention. , , Besides this DAS also promotes Health Camps are organized based on the Health cards and doctor s Register. Owing to this 4 health camps are organized in a year, in reference to the prevalence of diseases in the health Register. , Both women and children are attended through clinical services ensuring awareness of avoiding quacks in the pockets of non-availability of health facilities. 8074 patients have been attended through these clinics, 6 cases have been referred to Government hospitals. Community needful people sententiously attended health check-up camps according to their needs and ensured their improvised health seeking behaviors. Three types special health check-up camps are being conducted on Paediatric, Skin and Gynaecology; including general health check-up camps. We provided services to 638 patients (Male 205 & Female 433) in the year of 2010 through 21 clinics and along with 32 girls less than 6 years. In the year of 2011 up to November 2011, we have provided clinical services to 1640 and along with 67 Boy and 69 Girls less than 6 years. General disease trends in these four areas are Fever, cold & cough, gastrointestinal problems e.g. diarrhoea, dysentery, hookworm infestation, hyper acidity etc.; skin problems scabies, boils, pox, prickly hits, cut & sores, others skin infections; Gynaecological problems e.g. white discharge, menstrual discontinuation, sexually transmitted infection, soiling of groins etc. and major paediatric problems are diarrhoea, dysentery, hookworm infestation, low body weight against age, cold, cough and fever. , , DAS is working with the physical environmental issues like maintaining sanitation in the working areas. DAS s focus is to stop open defecation in all the working areas to prohibit environmental hazards. The children of DAS run schools and coaching centers receives awareness on various environmental issues like importance of plantation, personal sanitation and hygiene. As a part of work towards keeping environment green and clean, World Environment Day is observed with various activities across all the centers and plantation is a common programme in it.