HAPSA, a non-profit organization, works to strengthen Nepal's health system by improving primary healthcare and advancing public health in collaboration with government bodies. Background:
HAPSA started as a student organization from University of Texas at Austin in 2010. HAPSA members initially created health awareness workshops directed towards young students in India who resided in the slums o
f Lucknow. HAPSA partnered with the Hindi-Urdu Flagship (HUF) program at UT Austin and with Bharitiya Muslim Mahila Aandolan (BMMA) in Lucknow to conduct these workshops. Health awareness workshops included hand hygiene, tobacco use, alcohol use, road side accidents, infection control and nutrition. The model was focused around empowering the local students and youth leaders to conduct these workshops within their communities. HAPSA also raised funds in Austin to help BMMA support the education of marginalized community students living in Lucknow. HAPSA's hand hygiene program was replicated for a village of Ghumar Chowk, Nepal. HAPSA partnered with an Austin based NGO called Hem-Sarita Pathak Foundation (HSPF). HSPF is primarily focused in education advancement and economic development of the community. HAPSA facilitated health education of the school and the community. While there, HAPSA formed member group in Nepal with students from Tribhuvan University and Institute of Medicine. HAPSA has hosted multiple health camps in GhumarChowk per community demands. HAPSA's hand hygiene campaign was also conducted the Sonrisa orphanage in Kathmandu. Since then, HAPSA sent medical students in collaboration with UT Southwestern Medical Center's Global Health Office to Nepal in order to continue the hand hygiene curriculum and perform a general community health needs assessment. A major disaster in Nepal changed HAPSA's direction. On Saturday April 25, 2015, at 11:56 am a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook Nepal followed by major aftershocks including one of 7.3 magnitude on May 12, 2015. Almost 10,000 people died and more than 22,000 were injured. More than 800,000 houses, 50,000 classrooms, and 1,000 health facilities were damaged; along with that, 500,000 livestock were killed. After a year, it is estimated that 4 million people are still living in temporary shelters and almost a million are homeless. With the support of individual donors, HAPSA raised money to work towards the health advancement of GhumarChowk and a similar village, Lakuri Bhanjyang. These villages are predominantly settled by Tamangs: communities that have been marginalized and oppressed in Nepal for decades. Since the earthquake, HAPSA's focus has been working to make communities resilient to disasters and to strengthen local health systems to provide health services based on the demand. Different pilot interventions were designed for each of these communities. In 2016, HAPSA members at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health developed a strategy that would allow HAPSA to support its sister organization in Nepal, HAPSA-Nepal, with networking, financing, and other technical support in HAPSA-Nepal's projects in GhumarChowk and Lakuri Bhanjyang. You can find details about the work in the HAPSA website: www.hapsaglobe.org. HAPSA's work has been recently featured here: http://mnsvmag.com/news/2017-05-04/healthcare-where-it-matters.html
You can learn more about recent HAPSA journey in our founder's blog here: https://hapsablog.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/the-25th-of-april-2/
