Drowning Prevention Day - Oct 5th

Across the world Drowning is a leading cause of death in children.

~ World Health Organisation

Nearly 400,000 children die due to drowning each year, with India alone having 23% of global drowning deaths at nearly 100,000 per year. 

Not only is this a very high rate of preventable deaths, but the number of fatalities currently double every 9 years. It is not a problem, but an epidemic.

As if this problem is not severe enough, our ignorance of the danger to young children in our society is acute. Most people are not aware.

India has 7,400 kms of coastline, 236 rivers, 500,000  ponds and lakes, millions of open wells, thousands of swimming pools. Drowning risk is omnipresent.

Maybe its our sense of religiosity that we think, that because we visit temples, churches, and Masjids nothing bad happens to us. Accidents and bad things happen to others never us. When a drowning tragedy hits someone we know well, we wake up to the reality, but by then its too late to do anything.
The heaviest weight in the world a person can carry is the coffin of their child.

We are used to demanding that the government do something. Governments are doing their bit, but its not enough and they need to do more. However is our well being only the responsibility of the government? 
Do we not have any responsibility for the safety of ourselves and our children?

Interaction with governments reveal that they are interested to do more to prevent loss of life and injuries. but recognise that they need more technical expertise and support.

More than 50 organisations across India from every state have come together to do more. In addition a signed appeal is being submitted to the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) requesting the government to declare 5th of October as '**Drowning Prevention Day**' starting from the year 2018

If you are interested in supporting this initiative on drowning prevention, please click and type Interested 
You can also send an email to [I want to join the movement to save lives

Useful References: 

World Health Organisation: Global report on drowning.

Infographic: Global Report on drowning.

Why strokes sometimes occur in bathroom?

* I am grateful to Baktawar Mehta and Bush Gulati for sharing this information with us.

Why to educate the girl child?

If you educate a boy you educate an individual.

If you educate a girl you educate a family.

Uganda

Afghanistan

• Globally, 77.6 million girls do not attend school
• There are 33 million fewer girls than boys in primary education
• Girls with secondary education are 6 times less likely to be married as children
• A girl with 7 years of schooling in the developing world will have 2.2 fewer children

Afghanistan

Hyderabad, India

• A child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of 5
• Two thirds of the 775 million illiterate adults, and 63% of illiterate youth, are female
• Literate mothers are twice as likely to immunize their children and send them to school  

Thailand

Uganda

• A girl who completes basic education is 3 times less likely to contract HIV
• A girl earns 20% more as an adult for every additional year of education she receives
• A nation’s GDP rises an average of 3% when 10% more its girls attend school 

India

Indonesia

• Less than 2% of international development funds are specifically allocated to girls 
• School is not free in over 50 countries

Turn off the bloody alarm

My brother in law nicknamed Ruby was a kidney patient and needed needed dialysis thrice a week. The dialysis procedure is an artificial equipment used to remove toxins in the blood, lasts for 4 hours and purifies about 1/8th of the blood in the body.

Whenever Ruby visited us in Pune, my wife Mohini and I accompanied him to one of the best dialysis centres in Pune.

As I sat in the crowded waiting room full of tense looking people, I decided to start a conversation with the people who had accompanied and escorted the patients to the dialysis centre.

A shocking 85% of the people said that the dialysis patient's kidneys were damaged as a result of medication and consumption of pain killers for a sustained period of time.

I was seized with rage. How could doctors be so irresponsible and prescribe pain killers for long periods?  Then I thought about the problem for a long, long time until I realised that placing the blame on the doctors was somewhat misplaced.

Take the case of Ruby, he started encountering constant headaches and spells of dizziness, when he was still a young student of medicine. Visits to numerous doctors failed to find a cause for these severe headaches, and they would invariably prescribe painkillers and send him home. What cannot be cured, can at best only be tolerated.

Not wanting to bother his parents he tried to find a solution to his headaches and dizziness by himself.  Unfortunately Ruby, the person who had a noble heart and himself a great healer was unable to heal himself. He confessed that the only way he could get through most days and nights was to keep on popping painkillers regularly, which eventually claimed his life.

What is pain and what are painkillers?
Pain is an alarm system that the human body's defence mechanism triggers to warn us of damage occurring to our body.
Painkillers are blockers of pain. They numb the body and mind so that the pain is 'killed'. A pain killer turns off the alarm so we feel comfortable for a while. In reality it suppresses the pain but does not remove the offending cause of the pain. The body tries to rid itself of the problem, but we have by consuming painkillers suppressed the problem.

The ailment, or infection is negative energy, which is manifested in the body and needs a cure. An attack on the symptoms but not on the root cause of the pain achieves at best temporary relief by suppressing the pain.

Energy cannot be suppressed, it will just find alternative channels to flow through within the body.
The negative energy or illness flows to other parts of the body and affects some vital organ like the kidneys, the liver pancreas etc.

Responsible doctors know very well the harmful effects and therefore prescribe painkillers for a short period of time to help people cope with the pain until a cure is found and implemented.

Patients are only human, and humans particularly when in pain do inexplicable things all the time.
Desperate to live normal lives, exhausted patients lose faith in doctors and medication. They try to save money and time, finding an easy and convenient solution to pop painkillers regularly. Over a period of time the pain comes and goes but the killing goes on.

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Next time you feel pain, try and find and treat the root causes of the pain. It requires a bit of self analysis and understanding to try and locate the cause, it rarely requires self medication of painkillers.

Here is a technique that works well. Close your eyes and try to focus on the pain, after sometime you will sense the general area and then the point where the pain is being sensed in the head or body. This is where the alarm is ringing, meditate on this point and your body will start revealing a path to where the pain is originating and quite likely the cause.

Stay focussed on the pain seems to disappear, at least  for quite a long while.  Sometimes the cause is the diet, sometimes lack of sleep, could be caused an injury or an allergy, but you will come to probable causes. Remove the cause and the pain will disappear.

Turning off the alarm never stopped the fire from burning everything down, so it is with the body. Respect and listen to the body and it will provide you a good chance to be happy, prevent health related miseries and in the end may even save your  life.

Drapetomania

Before the American civil war, some psychiatrists diagnosed many slaves with a condition called 'drapetomania': "A mental illness, in which the slave possessed, an irrational desire for freedom and a tendency to try and escape."

_____________________

Drapetomania is even more relevant today. 

There are more people in slavery today than ever in the history of our world. Slavery is now more sophisticated and is indulged in with the passive support of governments and businesses.

Further, circumstances created by modern society and 'civilisation', under the yoke of some 'ism or the other, capitalism, communism, state-ism, racism, organised religion, exploitative employers, unhappy families and relationships,intrusive/oppressive governments etc.

Many amongst us wish to escape. Unfortunately most stressed people have only a vague idea about what they want to escape from and how. 

Only a person who is able to reflect will be able to discover themselves and then only know what to do next and how. Quiet time with oneself is the greatest balm and also the trigger for planning future actions.

        _____________________

Drapetomania' first described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 is today considered an example of pseudoscience and part of the edifice of scientific racism

It could happen to you

Philanthropist and a pillar of society, forty eight year old Gurbaksh Singh had just completed his early morning walk with about a dozen companions, all prosperous businessmen. He complained of uneasiness for a while and then suddenly collapsed onto the road. His friends looked at each other with concern but completely clueless as what to do. 

Three of the men slinked away, eight of them just looked at each and at people passing by, all waiting  for someone to do something and hoping for a miracle to occur. No one wanted to contact the police as that would mean huge problems and unlimited personal agony. 

One man picked up Gurbaksh's mobile phone found the number of 'Balli', Gurbaksh's son and explained the situation to Balli. Balli and his mother rushed to the scene, picked up Gurbaksh and took him to the hospital. 
All this took about an hour, by the time the doctors attended to Gurbaksh, it was too late. 

All who are born must one day die.
The tragedy however is that Gurbaksh like a million other Indians could in all probability have been saved with a little first aid and CPR (Cardio pulmonary resuscitation) by a trained individual The hands on training and practice for CPR takes no more than 30 to 60 minutes of training.

Help us to spread awareness and also to save lives. Who knows one day it might be your own or that of a family member or friend.

If you want to know more about availing services or participating in the movement for saving lives please contact the following non profit NGOs 

For learning more, about saving lives and building communities. You may contact 
   

      Mr. George Makasare  (CEO)
      Mobile: +91 966 532 5855   

      Email:    george.tarang@gmail.com

 *  Tarang Sports and Education Foundation

     www.tarang.asia   


      Is an organisation committed to community development, training in first aid, lifesaving & life guarding. 
      Tarang's focus is on using lifesaving to build happy, healthy and wealthy communities.