ARCH Mangrol
The Mangrol Dispensary was established in 1982 and continues to serve about 11 -12,000 patients every year. We have established a kind of reputation for chronic disease management which could be described as a secondary care centre for the extremely poor, ill-served tribal people of the vast hinterland. The most important chronic killer remains tuberculosis (T.B.), but respiratory, skin, heart, and other disorders are common. We see plenty of asthma-bronchitis, diabetes mallitus (DM), hypertension, heart failure, and coronary heart disease. Mental illnesses are also increasingly brought to us for diagnosis and management. Chronic skin disorders like psoriasis, atrophic dermatitis, fungus infections are rampant, as are auto immune disorders of all kinds including thyroid disorders.
The satisfactory part of the story is that most of the above problems plus many more are now almost entirely handled by our team of seven competent senior health workers. We have taken fifteen years to develop elaborate informal evidence-based protocols for about 25-30 chronic diseases. The health workers are quite adept to these protocols and the quality of the care has improved considerably. The social and cultural acceptance of the care provided mainly by the health workers is quite gratifying. Read More

ARCH Dharampur
ARCH dispensary is equipped with a laboratory and a low cost diagnostic center at its campus in Dharampur. The low cost diagnostic center includes facilities for all essential lab tests, EKG and sonography and is accessible to poor patients. This dispensary not only caters to poor patients in and around Dharampur, it is also a referral center for all patients referred by our trained village health workers and by other NGOs. In the absence of rational low cost medical services for poor patients in this area, this center is gradually becoming a popular medical care center. Daily, about 40-50 patients benefit from this service. Patients pay just a token fee for consultation and medicines to ensure that our services have value but are affordable for all.
We are always sure to include maximum health education while giving clinical treatment.
In the rural tribal communities in southern Gujarat, the quality of education is very poor. In many villages, primary schools arrived only within the last ten to fifteen years, and secondary education is quite limited. Teachers are not properly trained in either subject matter or teaching methods. Students are mechanically led through lessons, but they do not learn, and teachers are completely unenthusiastic. ARCH seeks not only to remedy the systematic dysfunction of the education system, but also to provide quality education, particularly in the critical subjects of math, science, and literacy.
Our approach is twofold: we provide direct services to students and schools, in the form of extracurricular educational programming, teacher trainings, and school help. Secondly, we create and promote quality educational tools that not only educate but also engage children, and make learning enjoyable. We want to replace parroting lessons and mechanical complacency in the classroom with curiosity, creativity, critical thinking and a love for learning that will last students a lifetime.gained a deep understanding of health beliefs and health care seeking behaviour of tribal population and developed innovative models for providing health care for rural and marginalized communities. It has now become an important source of providing basic health care and health education. By a network of well-trained health workers and traditional midwives and mobile dispensaries, ARCH is assisting these communities to seek modern health care interventions that reduce suffering and save lives and also providing dental care as well as for infertility problems. In the rural talukas of Dharampur and Kaprada, ARCH also conducts mobile health camps in inaccessible villages for clinical services and conducts basic health education activities in the communities. ARCH has published health education booklets in simple Gujarati for the last 15 years. More than 25 booklets are published. These booklets are well received all over Gujarat and are being translated in other languages Read More