Empowerment Evaluation in India: REACHES Another Milestone

 Empowerment Evaluation in India: REACHES Another Milestone

USAID-sponsored efforts to eliminate tuberculosis have REACHED another milestone. The Resource Group for Education and Advocacy for Community Health (REACH) is using an empowerment evaluation approach to accomplish its objectives, focusing on the Accountability Leadership by Local Communities for Inclusive, Enabling Services (ALLIES) Project.

The project is:

·      establishing community-owned mechanisms to monitor the quality of TB care and services

·      ensuring sustainability by generating local solutions through patient literacy on rights, behavior change, counseling, and referrals to services

·      creating powerful advocates at multiple levels to shape rights-respectful and accountable TB services and

·      promoting policy, regulatory and financial environments that support TB elimination at the state and national levels among parliamentarians and decision-makers.

Empowerment evaluation is designed to help determine if the ALLIES project is on course, diverging, and/or changing life for the better. 

One of the most significant outcomes to date is Training TB survivors on Rights-Based Approaches. For more information about the project contact Rahul Dutta (REACH), Catherine Cove and Sandip Pattanayak (Catalyst Management Services), and David Fetterman (Fetterman & Associates).