Udayan Care has developed an indigenous, age related, national level 'School Health Education and Life skills' curriculum for primary grade children based on international frameworks of comprehensive school-based health education.

Given the critical role that health and hygiene has in our lives, and the importance of Life Skills in leading a fulfilling life, it is of grave concern that our curriculum in schools does not put enough emphasis on these issues. Though school-based Health Education programmes have been practiced in the US and European countries for more than thirty years, till date none of the Indian schools have a systematic Health Education & Life Skills curriculum practiced in a developmentally appropriate manner.

A curriculum such as Health Education and Life Skills is especially needed in developing countries like India, since there is an increasing threat of communicable, non communicable and lifestyle diseases prevalent in the country. Lack of knowledge about diseases, preventive health care as well as other health issues across all segments of society as well as absence of health and life skills training in the Indian education system at the primary level, makes this curriculum a dire need.

Health Education and Life Skills curriculum has been designed to increase awareness about health and hygiene among children right from their childhood; inculcate positive living habits among them; and to empower them to make informed choices about their own health. Understanding the utmost need for such a curriculum, we launched a 'Health & Life Skills Education Project' in January 2004; to initiate qualitative school based health and Life Skills education.

Our Health Education and Life Skills curriculum is unique in many aspects:

• It moves away from the information based, teacher-centered education to process centered and learner-friendly education with a focus on how to think rather than on rote memory
• It is based on very low operational cost; basically just a teacher's manual (common across all levels) and a teacher's reference activity book; it requires no books for the students or costly equipment or elaborate visual aids.
• It does not constitute a separate subject, easily integrated into other subjects and topics being taught in the class; detailed material available for the teacher so that she need not spend extra time preparing for the topic.
  

The basic objectives of this curriculum are:

• To promote the idea of responsibility for one's health by addressing a comprehensive range of health concerns including nutrition, exercise and fitness, disease prevention, alcohol & drug use prevention, tobacco use prevention, growth and development, social and emotional health, dental, consumer & environmental health, safety, conflict resolution and violence prevention.
• To instill life skills such as self-esteem, decision making, goal-setting, effective communication, stress management, character building, and sensory motor skills, ensuring that they become an integral part of each child's life and personality.

The project will be completed in three phases of which the first phase has been completed.

Phase I:The pilot project was conducted from April 2004 to March 2005, using an existing international health education curriculum, which was implemented in 26 schools of Delhi. The aim was to study and evaluate the specific health education and skills development needs of the children in Delhi.

A team of health and education experts was hired as Health Consultants from the AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences - a premier hospital, New Delhi) and Pedagogists from the Elementary Education Department of NCERT, to review the health manuals and present their suggestions. An independent researcher, Dr. Sushma Batra, Reader, Deptt. Of Social Work, Delhi University, was appointed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum. The researcher reinforced the need to develop a new indigenous health education and skill development curriculum for India.

The response and the outcomes have been very encouraging. Since then we have developed a module, with the ultimate aim to spread the knowledge of 'health, hygiene and life skills' to primary age children in the country.

Phase II: In phase II, Ms.Vaishali Gupta, a popular writer of children's books, was hired to author our 'Health is Fun - Life skills and Health curriculum manuals' for primary age children, as per the guidelines that have been developed through the pilot year. Ms. Shefali Ray, a well-known editor, had been appointed to edit the curriculum. They are very experienced in the field of curriculum writing and have worked with SCERT as well as leading publishers like Scholastic India, Oxford, etc.
The books have already been written and designed; they just need to be printed. Once printed, they would be introduced to 50 schools in the initial phase and teachers would be trained to use the manuals.

Phase III: The final phase would consist of reaching out to more schools and consolidating with Government.

The immediate requirement is the acquisition of funding to print the health manual whilst partnering with schools and conducting workshops for teachers, training them to use the manual and activity books. However, due to paucity of funds for printing the manuals and conducting workshops, the process is getting delayed. Efforts have to be made for liaising with government agencies to partner the project which is crucial in order to incorporate the module into the regular primary school curriculum.

26 Schools where we did our workshops

1. Public schools (Non - Government with no substantial inclusive components including NGO run schools)
   a) Mahavir Model School
   b) Nehru Public School, Ghaziabad
   c) Delhi Area Primary School
   d) Bal Vikas Vidyalaya
   
   
2. Inclusive schools (Non - Government with a substantial inclusive components)
   a) Sanskrit School
   b) Sri Ram School - Vasant Vihar
   c) Sri Ram School - Aravali
   d) Amar Jyoti Inclusive School
   
   
3. Schools for children with disability
   a) National Association for the Blind
   b) Asha AWWA School
   c) Enabling Centre
   d) Aanchal School
   
   
4. Kendriya Vidyalaya School
   a) K.V. - Delhi Cantt. School
   b) K.V. J.N.U. School - 3 locations
   
   
5. 5. M.C.D. Schools (South and East Zones)
   a) MCD Sai - dul - ajaib - South
   b) MCD Sant Nagar II evening - South
   c) MCD Fatehpur Beri Girls (2 teachers) - South
   d) MCD Begampur, Near Malviya Nagar - South
   e) MCD R.K. Puram 2 - South
   f) MCD Muhammadpur, R.K.Puram Sec 1 - South
   g) MCD R.K. Puram 5 - Boys - South
   h) MCD R.K. Purum 7 - South
   i) MCD Ganesh Nagar I, East
   j) MCD West Vinod Nagar I ( 2 teachers) - East
   k) MCD Mayur Vihar II (2 teachers) - East

List of Health Consultants whose inputs were collected on different modules:

1. Dr. Ajoy Roychaudhary, Dental Surgeon, AIIMS
2. Dr. Anil K Gosawami, Dept of Community Medicine, Old O.T. Block, AIIMS
3. Dr. Anju Dhawan, Clinical Psychiatrist, Associate Professor, National Drug Dependence Center, AIIMS
4. Dr. Jennifer Lobo, Administrative Office. Holy Family Hospital
5. Dr. S.K. Kapoor, Professor, Dept. of Community Medicine, AIIMS
6. Dr. Manju Mehta, Prof and Head of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, AIIMS
7. Dr. Panna Chaudhary Indian Academy of Pediatrics, LNJP
8. Dr. Sanjay Wadhwa, Additional Professor, Dept. of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, AIIMS.

List of Pedagogists whose inputs were collected on different modules:

1. Prof. Krishan Kant Vashistha, HOD, Dept of Elementary Education, NCERT, Sri Arvind Marg, Delhi-16
2. Dr. G.C. Upadhaya, Dept of Elementary Education, NCERT, Sri Arvind Marg, Delhi-16
3. Prof. Anita Julka, Reader in Dept of Special Needs Education, NCERT. , Sri Arvind Marg, Delhi-16
4. Prof. Kiran Devender (AHPL), Dept of Elementary Education, NCERT, Sri Arvind Marg, Delhi-16
5. Prof. Manju Jain, Dept of Elementary Education, NCERT, Sri Arvind Marg, Delhi-16
6. Prof. Romilla Soni, Dept of Elementary Education, NCERT, Sri Arvind Marg, Delhi-16
   

Ms. Vaishali Gupta, Author
An educationist, she has authored several books and textbooks at the primary and secondary level. She has developed content for several CD ROMs, e- learning material for various companies. She has been closely associated with development of application based learning programmes, at the primary school level. To help in making children sensitive towards their environment and make it a part of their learning process, she also holds workshops imparting science concepts through practical experiments, which have been very successful in sparking off a science temper in many children. She runs a Learning Centre in Noida (near New Delhi) for young children, which aims at clearing up basic concepts of a child, and discourages rote learning.

Ms. Shefali Ray, Editor
Ms. Shefali Ray is an ELT person who is now is a teacher educator. She has been faculty at the State Council of Educational Research and Training, Delhi for 15 years where she has been coordinating and directing all the English programmes. Mrs. Ray has been associated with the CBSE, NCERT, IGNOU and National Institute for Open Schooling and has been developing ELT and educational materials for both students and teachers. She is an author for OUP and has authored books of the Listening and Speaking Course and the Broadway series. With 32 books to her credit, Mrs. Shefali Ray is also a creative writer in her own right and has published poems, rhymes, stories and novelettes for children in English.