Family planning and voluntary organizations.

ABSTRACT

PIP The government of India's family planning program has expanded both in concept and scope. Voluntary organizations have contributed considerably by motivating family planning acceptors and by successfully trying out several alternative approaches. The intention of this discussion is to describe the activities of a selective few family planning organizations that are distinctive in approach and have had a catalytic effect on social change. The descriptions are presented in a somewhat historical perspective. The All India Women's Conference (AIWC) was formally registered as a society in 1930. Initially it was concerned with the education of women, but it soon recognized the need to deal with "repeated and quick pregnancies." In 1946 under a mobile van scheme, "SKIPPO," medical services and later family planning services were taken to rural areas of India. The SKIPPO scheme brought motivation, information and family planning services to rural areas and exhibited and established the need for rapport and continuity of social workers with the rural clientele. The primary contribution of the AIWC has been linking family planning to development through information dissemination and personalizing communication strategies. The Family Planning Association of India (FPAI) began in 1949 as the Family Planning Committee. As of March 1980 FPAI had 109 rural and 59 urban centers. FPAI has over a period of time worked to break new ground and has extended its guidance to the industrial sector. The FPAI does extensive work through its network of rural and urban centers, but work in the rural areas has been taken up more comprehensively and purposefully by 2 other organzations, i.e., the Gandhigram Institute of Rural Health and Family Welfare Trust and the Comprehensive Rural Health Project at Jamkhed. The Family Planning Foundation, founded in 1972, is a funding organization. Through action demonstration projects, the organization worked to fund projects in the following areas biomedical; information; education; communication, health, and social sciences; and other fields relating to family planning. Currently, the Foundation is funding 50 projects in various fields and its experimental work has received serious consideration at various levels. The wide range of incentives in India at this time basically focus on sterilization. Voluntary organizations have long been active in family planning, but the government sought active collaboration with them in April 1976. Since that time, collaborations have slowly and steadily increased.^ieng