Himani Verma – City Women Icon 2022, Bhilai-Durg
A TB survivor and working as a TB Champion by joining REACH organization which works for Specially Tuberculosis.
Presently I am working as a Network Coordinator of TB Mukt Chhattisgarh Foundation which is the only network of TB Survivors in Chhattisgarh State. As I said I am a TB Survivor, and this is what inspired me the most to work in it. I have suffered from TB, so I know what kind of problems or obstacles you face when you are suffering from TB when I got cured of it I got the opportunity to join REACH organization which specially works for people with TB, and then I got inspired to do this work on my own so that I can give more information about TB to the people and make them aware. When I got a call from the Reach organization for the first time, called to attend their training session. I went there. There I met other people like me who were from different districts of Chhattisgarh, who also had TB and they were also cured. I listened to their TB story and after listening to them, I felt that more people have suffered from TB than me. Then I got more inspiration to do this work and I started working by joining Reach. I had TB in 2017. In November 2018 when I received my first call from REACH inviting me to attend a workshop. From that to till now I’ve been connected to REACH and working as a TB Champion in the community.
I have recently been selected by the TB Mukt Chhattisgarh Foundation as a network coordinator under the REACH, ALLIES project that is supported by USAID. The TB Mukt Chhattisgarh Foundation was the first State network for TB Survivors, formed in January 2020. I was nominated the treasurer.
Over the past two months, I have been working as the network coordinator.
When TBMCGF was formed there were only 32 members from 27 districts of Chhattisgarh. We have been working hard to add more members. Today the network has more than 300 members.
The formation of the TBMCGF district chapters under the ALLIES project has allowed us to quickly conduct TB Survivor-based training such as income generation, counseling, and communication-related training. Network members have actively started looking for local resources, from where they can get donations for any kind of activities, as well as promote our organization among people. When the work of the TB champion started in our state, I was the only TB champion from the Durg district. In the initial phase, when I started working, there were many problems, like before I had never come out of the house much, and my traveling increased. Being a girl who neither knows how to drive, sometimes by auto or sometimes on foot, I worked in the field. Initially, I did not get much support from the health system because according to them, it was natural for a young girl who is only 19 years old to take such things seriously. I would like to share my two happiest moments or we can say my achievements working as a TB Champion.
The first one was when I started working in my district Durg. I noticed lots of misconceptions about TB. The people still have stigma & discrimination against people with TB. Due to a lack of clear information also they have a fear of losing their friends, family, partner, jobs, etc, due to disease. They didn’t want to speak about it. So I felt that we should take some serious steps towards this, so we decided to start a campaign to reduce this. Then I took help from the entire NTEP staff of my district and with the help of them I went to the collector’s office of my district to advocate in this matter. I explained what is the status of TB in our district. After listening to all this the collector sir also felt that we should do it, then with the help of the collector sir and all NTEP staff we launched the ” TB Free Bhilai Campaign ” and it was my biggest success to advocate with the collector in this area. My second happiest moment was when I was nominated for the Global Fund’s Youth Council Member, in this council I’m the only Indian member. Selecting the team for the TB champion work was not a big deal as a comparison matter of getting people in front of the community who can talk about their TB fearlessly and spread information about TB to the community. In the initial phase, there was a lot of trouble in this, TB survivors came forward and turned to TB champions. They started working as TB champions. In the beginning, they faced a lot of problems, but by cooperating, they learned things, and is working very well now. At present, 35 TB Survivors in our Durg district have come out and spoken about TB fearlessly. Now they are working to eliminate TB. As we mentioned, a network has been formed by TB Survivors in Chhattisgarh, which is named TB Mukt Chhattisgarh Foundation. We are creating district chapters of TB Mukt Chhattisgarh Foundation in every district of Chhattisgarh to make our work more effective. Huh. In the district chapter, we are conducting Livelihood training so that the self-reliance of the people of the network increases and more and more people come to know about our organization. Our organization is also focusing on income generation. We are also paying a lot of attention to the number of members of the organization which is increasing continuously. We are trying to increase it further. My vision and also my further planning is that all members should work very hard towards having an identity both at the state & national level.
I would like to advise all women that there is no age to do any work. If your vision is broad and you want to do this in your life or want to achieve something in your life, then no obstacles will be able to stop you. You will keep on growing. When I started I was the only one in my district. But today my position is that of a network coordinator in which I am leading the TB champions working in 27 districts of Chhattisgarh. I am representing not only my state but also my state and country at national and international levels, so I can proudly say that it is my biggest achievement to become a TB champion after recovering from TB. “Challenge is success” I would like to define success as not knowing ourselves when challenges become opportunities in life like it happened to me. And I would like to advise all the women that if there are any challenges in your life, do not be afraid of them. Try to come out from it very fearlessly. Because who knows, if it may bring some opportunity for you later on. So wish you the very best of luck to all brave ladies for the further journey of life. Keep going.