Society for Health Alternatives Papers

The collection, Society for Health Alternatives Papers, consists of three series: ‘Women’s Health’; ‘Holistic Health’; and ‘Gujarati Publications.’ The publications have been co-created by SAHAJ and/or Renu Khanna in conjunction with organizations such as SEWA-Rural, Medical Mission Sisters, and Social Action for Rural and Tribal Inhabitants of India (SARTHI).

Women’s Health This series consists of one sub-series, the Women Centered Health Project (WCHP), and one publication by SARTHI. The series consists of publications such as reviews, books, reports, and manuals produced from the work of voluntary organizations working in rural and urban marginalized communities to address women’s health concerns, produced between 1992 and 2005. The publications were produced based on the experiences and resources derived from women’s health initiatives that were implemented in conjunction with the government’s existing infrastructure and local communities in regions such as Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The WCHP sub-series contains nine published reports, manuals, policy briefs and resources from the work of WCHP, a collaborative effort by SAHAJ with the Public Health Department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), and the Royal Tropical Institute, Netherlands. The publications offer a view into WCHP’s capacity-building workshops and training manuals, aiming to update the clinical knowledge of healthcare providers and administrators at BMC’s primary health posts and dispensaries based on a gender and socially informed perspective of healthcare. The documents also contain policy briefs and analyses, gesturing to the exchanges between policymakers and non-government health initiatives such as WCHP in shaping public health. The publications were brought out following the implementation of training sessions for multiple WCHP projects conducted by Renu Khanna, amongst other SAHAJ staff, BMC staff, activists, medical professionals, and members of the community.

The SARTHI report was published in 1992 by SAHAJ/SARTHI on the experience of SARTHI, a voluntary organization, in developing and implementing a women-centric model of primary healthcare in tribal Gujarat.

Holistic Health This series contains four publications on holistic health from SAHAJ and Medical Mission Sisters, Pune, printed between 1989 and 1997 (created as a part of the material for the Basic Holistic Health course by the Medical Mission Sisters) for students and practitioners of holistic health. The textbooks, co-authored by Renu Khanna, cover a range of topics like the modern pharmaceutical industry, traditional healing systems, people’s movements and marginalization, psychosynthesis, and clinical research methodology. The publications also include a self-study workbook for holistic health practitioners.

Community Health Gujarati Publications This series consists of two publications by the Society for Health Alternatives in Gujarati published between 2009 and 2012. They are compilations of stories of youth and community organizers addressing themes such as masculinity and experiences of working on health issues with marginalized communities.

This collection also contains two publications by the Society for Education, Welfare and Action-Rural (SEWA-Rural) and Low Cost Standard Therapeutics (LOCOST). The report by SEWA-Rural, co-authored in collaboration with Renu Khanna from SAHAJ in 1991, reviews the journey and learnings from SEWA-Rural’s community health project in Gujarat, where the organization took charge of providing primary health care services across 20 villages. The publication by LOCOST, published in 2006 as a revised edition, offers a critical analysis of the pharmaceutical industry and prescription drugs, equipping the layperson with the necessary information to navigate the pharmaceutical landscape.