From scraped knees and elbows, to tummy aches and headaches, and more serious bleeding injuries, children at school have multiple medical issues that need to be attended immediately. A First-Aid-Kit is the first line of treatment for injuries and illnesses including those that do not require a trip to the hospital or significant ones, which do, where administering first aid limits the severity of damage.
India has 12 million schools, 87% located in villages, with less than 5% of them have access to a first aid kits in the school. Of the 100,000 schools in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, less than half of them have access to first aid kits and meagre financial resources are the primary reason for this.
6 lakhs schools do not have First-Aid-Kits in India
MahaVahini Foundation has been running a project called HealBox that provides first-aid kits to govt schools in the Telugu states which lack even basic first-aid facilities that can take care of injuries and minor ailments of children. The first-aid kits called HealBoxes contain medicines, consumables that can suffice the needs of an average sized school for one year. The HealBoxes are sponsored by individuals and organizations for their chosen area or village. In 2015, around 2000 HealBoxes have been distrubuted to schools across Andhra and Telangana with the support of 150 donors.