Dear Dipanwita Sarkar, congratulations on receiving the Else Kröner Fresenius Award for Development Cooperation in Medicine 2025. As project coordinator, you developed the “Empowering Communities towards Health Orientation” project in collaboration with German Doctors e. V. With the help of mobile clinics, trained health workers, and comprehensive educational work, basic medical care is being improved in the Sundarbans, one of the poorest and most remote regions of India. What does your typical workday look like?

Dipanwita Sarkar: I am engaged with the organization as Programme Manager and Project Coordinator of the ECHO Medical Project, which began in 2020 and has evolved according to community needs. My role adapted accordingly. At the outset, I developed training curricula for the project team and Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), conducted trainings, and focused on building a second line of leadership, alongside strategic planning and monitoring.

Currently, my work is divided between office tasks and field monitoring. In the office, I prepare training plans and curricula, conduct staff trainings, draft case studies and success stories, liaise with funding partners, and design resource mobilization strategies. I also create and implement monitoring tools for continuous evaluation and improvement of both the project and the team.

In the field, I conduct two types of visits. The first involves attending events such as mobile clinics, awareness sessions, and community meetings to assess the quality of delivery and identify improvements. The second type consists of random meetings with beneficiaries to gather their feedback, perceptions, needs, and note existing gaps.
 

What motivated you personally to get involved in healthcare in the remote regions of the Sundarbans? 

While working in the Sundarbans, we realized that people lagged behind in health, education, and livelihood, trapped in a cycle of superstitions, drug abuse, financial insecurity, child labour and child marriage. Health was the key factor: poor health reduced people’s energy to work, cut labour days for daily wage earners, and led to financial loss and other social issues. Although government services existed, most could not access them due to the difficult geography.

This motivated us to focus on basic health management. While we could not shorten the distance to hospitals, we could reduce disease and hospital visits by promoting good practices and health-seeking behaviour. With data from health assessments, we could also draw the attention of government services to evolving issues. Training Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) allowed them to act as local leaders, raise demands in Gram Panchayat development meetings, and help establish a more community-friendly and accessible health support system.
 

The award is endowed with 100,000 euros. What will you use the prize money for? 

It is our pleasure to state that the project not only achieved its objectives but also led to unintended positive outcomes. In many intervention villages, grassroots government health facilities became better equipped and more community-friendly. Access to safe drinking water and concrete roads was also ensured. However, challenges remain, and the pace of development is uneven across villages.

The prize money will allow us to address further health issues, such as the prevention of cervical carcinoma and matters of Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights (SRHR). It will also help us reach more underserved villages, conduct research on gaps in government health services considering the unique geography and demographics of the Sundarbans, and strengthen networking and consultation with government health departments to benefit the wider community.


Thank you very much for the interview!