Educating Hill Women about Indoor Air Pollution through Low Cost Communication Aids

In hill region of Uttarakhand in North India, women play a distinctive role not only in household but in daily routine activities like fuel wood collection, livestock raising, farming operations etc. Hill women in spite of their major role are resource poor and ignorant about their own problems and sufferings. Hill women use traditional stoves or chulhas for cooking which emanate lot of smoke. Since kitchens in the most hilly homes are poorly ventilated, the smoke gets accumulated in the house. Prolonged exposure to high levels of pollutants has a very adverse impact on the health of women. Although enough viable and adoptive technologies have been developed many of these are not reaching the women residing in remote areas. The level of awareness among hill women about health information was negligible with regard to Indoor Air Pollution in Bhaluti village of Nainital district of Uttarakhand. Keeping this in mind the study in Bhaluti village of Nainital district was conducted to see whether or not low cost communication is effective in this condition. The grey areas for the present study were found through Participatory Rural Appraisal like non-participant observation, transect walk, resource map, and daily routine diagram techniques. Three broad areas were identified, viz., resources of indoor air pollution, health hazards due to indoor air pollution, and renewable energy sources.