Awareness drive amid pilgrimage,a new experience for devotees

Bureau deputy director Vilas Deshpande says the film got a good response so much so that with the screen being slightly small,many devotees gave up their white dhoti as a replacement. The film,depicting how a doctor is caught red-handed while conducting illegal sex selection of the foetus,was screened on these dhotis many a time.

The bureau has also printed a series of flash cards,flip charts,posters and over 80,000 copies of a 20-page booklet — Goshta Mazya Taichi (Story of My Sister). The Marathi booklet seeks to create an awareness about how a girl is discriminated against from birth. The protogonist boy,her brother,realises how unfair this attitude has been and urges his school friends to sensitise their parents about how important girls are. The booklet will be distributed in schools.

Besides those on the girl child,the bureau has also brought out booklets,flip charts and material on other issues like maternal health,safe delivery,nutrition for pregnant woman,sterilisation and family planning methods. It has also taken up issues like what care a woman should take post 40. Nearly 14,000 copies of flip charts detailing ways to reduce maternal mortality have been printed and distributed to health workers and auxillary nursing midwives,aimed at creating an awareness among pregnant women who report for antenatal checkup.