Hearts Full of Care, Eyes Full of Light – A Day of Maternity/Child care and Coastal Peace

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 Thursday 27th February 2025

Written by Meri & Elina

Few of us begun the day early at 6 am for a yoga class at the bottom floor of our hostel. The class was aimed for locals but luckily held in English. After the relaxing yoga session, all of us gathered at the lobby of our hostel at 7.50 am and headed for breakfast at the campus cafeteria as usual. 

The first field visit of the day was to a Rural Maternity and Child Home located outside the city. We got to enjoy beautiful scenery on the bus and drove along a winding dirt road lined by palm trees. However, coming from a country with scarce traffic, we had a few scares on the narrow road with incoming traffic. 



 

The Rural Maternity and Child Home was founded in 1956 and aims to improve access to and use of maternal and child health care, those being the founding pillars of public health in India. We learned that this centre is associated with the Manipal University, and it is funded by private actors. The home provides a range of services, such as family planning, ante- and postnatal check-ups, child vaccinations, as well as physio- and occupational therapy as needed. The services are provided at the clinic once a week by a post-graduate doctor and few times a week as home visits by an auxiliary nurse midwife. We were happy to find out that the centre uses extensive maternity cards to support their work!

After the visit to the Rural Maternity and Child Home we headed to an Anganwadi centre. Anganwadi centres are rural child care centres, that were founded by the Indian government in 1975 as part of the Integrated Child Development Services program to combat child hunger. Nowadays the centres also provide basic health care services, such as contraceptive counselling and nutrition supplementation, as well as informal education. Coming from a country with a long tradition of free school meals it was nice to hear that the children taken care of in the Anganwadi centres receive free meals during the day! The kids, aged 2-5 years, were curious to see us, and quickly located the one student who had a fun Apple watch to play with. 


After the visits in the rural area, we headed back to the city. We had a lunch at the campus cafeteria and enjoyed some ice coffee to cool us off in the mid-day heat of 37°C. Luckily the last field visit of the day was to the Museum of Anatomy and Pathology that is located at the campus and only a short walk away. The visit was self-guided, so we wandered around the hallways of the museum examining the numerous specimens of human and animal anatomy and pathology. We finished the day earlier than usual and headed back to the hostel around 3 pm. 

Even though the official field visits of the day had been done and dusted, we hopped in the bus and headed to the beach with a few of the local students. We drove along the same road as in the morning and ended up on the beach just in time to catch the sunset. The sunset was spectacular, but due to strong currents, it was forbidden to swim on the beach.  We enjoyed strolling along the white sand, dipping our toes in the warm ocean, and capturing the sunset in our cameras. On the way back we got to visit one of the local student’s beautiful and colourful home, just next to the beach, and were offered refreshments and local treats. After a drive back to the city, we finished the day with a dinner in a nearby restaurant. 






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