After the successful implementation of the Making More Health Insights week in India – more than 100 managers from Boehringer Ingelheim participated in the last 2,5 years – this time a new pilot week “MMH in action” has been launched. MMH in Action aims to focus on specific target groups in our focus area (surroundings of Coimbatore, ca. 100 km area, tribal and urban) and to identify pragmatic and sustainable solutions that can be implemented with the target groups themselves to make more wealth and health happen. Part of this exercise is also a week challenge for the group to run a 45 min animal health related training in the villages, because “it is not that much about creating ideas, but much more about implementing them, even at a very simple level. Learn. Un-learn. Re-learn and then do it. That’s part of our MMH in Action week.”

A group of 10 people has visited today farmers to understand more about their life, their farming challenges, cultural background and values.

“I was very surprised that there are some very modern technologies in place, but on the other site people walk in the morning and afternoon under the rain to gain 1 EUR for the milk they sell”, says one of the participants. “The first training idea I had in mind has totally changed after the discussion with the farmers”, adds another MMH participant. “The training has to be much more holistic, not just about diseases or prevention, but also about empowering the farmers in terms of self-confidence, marketing and innovative business models.”

Every day field visits, reflections and the week challenge work are on the agenda. The field visits include visits in tribal villages and farmer households, visits of milk chilling plants and veterinary universities and hospitals. Speeches given by local stakeholders who work with these target groups are given. Upcoming ideas on how to engage under the umbrella of MMH are discussed together with unusual partners from many different backgrounds and local stakeholders are involved right from the beginning. Because Making More Health can happen only if we co-create and learn from each other.

It will be interesting to see how this pilot will develop and what might be the future actions that will complement our existing network and activities comprising health awareness programs, digital training, kindergarten buildings and training of kindergarten teachers as well as a 2 years hygiene program that was rolled out a few months back in collaboration with one of our MMH fellows.

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Learn more about our Making More Health (MMH) activities in South India at http://www.makingmorehealth.com