D. Randeep, Deputy Commissioner of Mysuru district, has called upon different departments to examine the possibilities of involving folk troupes in spreading messages about government schemes effectively.
Inaugurating a training programme of folk troupes from different districts in Mysuru division on Wednesday, he said folk troupes play an important role in spreading messages to people and they were successful in creating awareness too in the past. He urged the Health Department to involve these troupes to spread messages about different health schemes introduced by both the Union and State government. He called upon other departments to do the same.
Mr. Randeep called upon the troupes to focus on eradicating blind beliefs and promoting the health schemes and programmes, so that all beneficiaries make use of it. He asked the department officials and folk experts to prepare an effective script on health schemes and train the troupes to put up shows at village, hobli and taluk-level.
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Basavaraju, district health officer, said that even doctors were scared to treat HIV/AIDS patients during the ‘90s and the Health Department had struggled to create awareness even among doctors that the diseases were not communicable. He said that the rural folk have had many beliefs and and were unaware of many government health schemes. Hence, the department had decided to involve folk troupes to eradicate blind faith.
He said that infant mortality rate and maternal deaths could effectively be brought down if rural people were educated about health issues and schemes.