SEHAT KA BATUA - THE HEALTH PURSE

Short List
TitleSEHAT KA BATUA - THE HEALTH PURSE
BrandMAHINDRA RISE
Product / ServiceCSR
CategoryB04. Use of Ambient Media: Small Scale
EntrantGREY INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Idea Creation GREY INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Media Placement GREY INDIA Mumbai, INDIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Sandipan Bhattacharyya GREY India Chief Creative Officer
Mangesh Kavale GREY India Associate Creative Director
Vivek Bhambhani GREY India Sr. Creative Director
Mehul Prajapati GREY India Creative Controller
Shouvik Gupta GREY India Group Creative Director
Arun Raman GREY India National Planning Head
Rana Ghoshal GREY RC&M Client Services Director
Deepak Oberoi GREY RC&M Chief Executive Officer
Suvrata Gharge Mahindra Rise Head - CSR
Anirban Ghosh Mahindra Rise Chief Sustainability Officer
Samir Chadha GREY India Sr.VP - GREY Works
Pooja Krishnamoorthy Bowline Executive Producer
Ankit Dahiya Bowline Director
Yuvraj Bandi GREY India Editor
Anjory Gor GREY India Animator
Jignya Shedge GREY India Assistant Director - Films
Harshad Khaire Independent Illustrator
Rashmi Naik Nimbalkar Independent Illustrator
Avinash Kanse Independent Illustrator
Sandeep Barge Independent Photographer
Rajesh Salodkar GREY India Retouching Artist
Pravin Patil GREY India Retouching Artist
Ramesh Dighe Before After Print Production

The Campaign

The Health Purse A purse that not only protects your money, but protects you from the dangers of Breast Cancer as well. The best way to effect any behaviour change is to ride on existing cultural behaviour. A 'Batua' is the traditional Indian women's purse. Women in rural India have a unique practice when it comes to protecting their money - they keep their purses in their blouses. Could this unique habit also help protect them from breast cancer? Riding on this age-old habit, we designed purses with illustrative visuals of women checking themselves - which served as a reminder to perform the simple breast self-examination steps given inside. The purses were printed on skin-friendly cloth and designed using 9 famous Indian folk-art styles. The 'batua' thus became a purse that didn't just protect their wealth, but their health as well.

Creative Execution

The Health Purses were given out as a part of Mahindra Rise breast cancer/health awareness drives in Madkepada, Belwadi, Kinipada, Katkariwadi, Sutarpada, Warkhanda among other remote villages in Maharashtra. These sessions started in March, 2018 and are continuing through till May. Mahindra gets in touch with local healthcare workers to help set up the awareness camps in community centres and village health centres. They inform the women in the village in advance to ensure attendance at these sessions which are conducted with the support of CPAA – Cancer Patients Aid Association. A typical session lasts around 2 hours, where women are taught how to perform a breast self-examination at home, before giving them the purses that serve as a reminder. The initiative is being scaled up to reach even more women in media-dark parts of the country.

In the first phase of this direct outreach programme, 2500 Health Purses were distributed to Rural Indian women across 6 villages. The impact can be gauged from the fact that: a) The Cancer Patients Aid Association of India not only conducted the health workshops in these 6 villages, they also distributed the Health purses, a confirmation of the relevance of the messaging. b) Both Mahindra Rise and the CPAA are committed to spread this initiative to 130 more villages through the year. c) The task of the programme was to help women understand the severity of breast cancer, the need for self-examination and the necessity to remind themselves to do this regularly. The Health Purse is a reminder tool and once it replaces the existing purses in the womens' daily lives, the behaviour change would have been achieved.

This idea uses the traditional purse as a medium for the first time to educate and remind women of rural India to check themselves regularly for breast cancer. In rural India, it's culturally taboo to openly talk about women's health issues, so we chose this medium as a reminder that's discreet and personal. While incidence of breast cancer is on the rise, media reach is very low in these villages. Because of the sensitive nature of the topic, the solution was to hand out these purses directly through a programme that travelled from village to village to engage and educate.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The priorities of the women in rural India are centred around taking care of their families. They have neither the time nor the inclination to think about their own health - very often waiting for symptoms of illness to manifest to a degree that is hard to cure. To increase the early detection of breast cancer, a new behaviour had to be introduced to them. They had to be taught how to examine themselves and to do it regularly. Because the reach of media is limited in these villages, the campaign was part of a direct outreach programme that travelled from village to village to engage with, educate them and give the purses that would remind them to make self checks a habit.