Before established programs in one community, a pregnant woman came to the hospital right as she was going into labor. Throughout her pregnancy, she did not receive prenatal care or attend wellness checkups so she never knew that she had heart disease. During childbirth, her heart could not sustain the strain and both her and the baby passed away. The doctors tried to save them but were unable to. If she had proper prenatal care, her condition could have been diagnosed and appropriate precautions would have been taken to save the mother and the baby. Ekam works in the community so that no mother or child loses their life to preventable causes.

A pregnant woman collapsed in a village and someone in the crowd who had previously attended Ekam’s workshop on healthcare resources shouted, “Call 108 for an ambulance”. The ambulance arrived and took her to safety in a timely manner. In many remote villages, information about emergency resources is not common knowledge. Ekam helps to save lives by working at the grassroot level to educate people about the healthcare resources available to them.

Ekam conducts health screening programs in government schools to identify children who may need medical treatment. For example, sometimes children with heart conditions may have few or no symptoms and their condition can go un-diagnosed until it is too late. Through ’s screening programs, the organization identified 120 kids with heart conditions. then helped the parents to navigate healthcare resources, government insurance schemes, and paperwork. All the children received care using government funds earmarked for this purpose at no cost to the parents.

About 40% of newborn deaths and 50% of maternal deaths occur on the day of birth. Ekam trains youth volunteers in villages to check up on newborn babies and educate mothers on how to properly care for them. One 10th grade volunteer trained by Ekam did a routine examination of a newborn baby and referred the baby to a nurse because she believed that the baby had neonatal diabetes. This is a very rare condition that even Dr. Sai, a pediatrician herself, had never seen. Ekam immediately arranged for the baby to be transferred to a higher-level facility and tested.

The baby indeed had neonatal diabetes at birth. This condition may be more common than we think, but many babies go un-diagnosed and die without proper treatment. Remarkably, with training from , a volunteer in 10th grade was able to check for and identify common and uncommon medical conditions ultimately saving lives in her village. ’s network and structure ensure that every child has access to appropriate healthcare resources.

Often in rural areas, superstitions and myths about vaccines dissuade many people from receiving them in a timely manner or at all. For example, when Pulse Polio–an initiative to give polio vaccinations across India within a two-day span–happened, many well-meaning but ill-informed mothers hid their babies from vaccination officers. In collaboration with UNICEF, Ekam works to improve vaccine compliance, especially among those who missed vaccinations due to COVID-19. Ekam trains local village volunteers to educate the community about important health topics using strategies like role-playing, puppet shows, and other formats that are easy to understand so that villagers become more open to health measures such as vaccines.