HEALTH AND HYGIENE
I feel that we can't educate children who are not healthy, and we can't keep them healthy if they're not educated. There has to be a marriage between health and education. You can't learn if your mind is full of unhealthy images from daily life and confusion about right and wrong.
Joycelyn Elders
HEALTH
We believe that our rural communities should have a robust primary health care system having an integration of both modern and traditional systems of medicine including Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha.

At NIE trust we are advocating for and establishing such health care systems in rural areas. We organize regular health check up camps and medicine distribution drives for the people in need through our partnerships with doctors/hakeems/vaids of repute. We also organize awareness campaigns on health issues in newborns, pregnant mothers and the elderly. The awareness campaigns put light on the rising chronic lifestyle disorders in rural communities and the urgent need to shift back to our traditional methods of cooking, dietary habits and cultivation.
HYGIENE
At NIE trust we are committed in our endeavour to re-establish rural communities as the models for utmost hygiene and sanitation. We work with local panchayat bodies and pradhans to ensure the groundwater in community wells and handpumps is safe to drink. We encourage people to use the traditional indigenous methods of purification of water through earthen and copper pots.

When it comes to sanitation the most important thing to keep in mind is that the human waste should not get mixed with the groundwater, nor should people come in direct contact with human excreta. This can happen only through a community driven end to open defecation and establishing proper household and public toilets. Another aspect of community hygiene involves solid waste management which we believe has become an issue of grave importance in rural areas. We work with local bodies and community heads to ensure proper treatment and disposal of solid waste thereby ensuring a healthy environment.

We work with women's self help groups to educate girls about menstrual hygiene and its importance.

We shall not defeat any of the infectious diseases that plague the developing world until we have also won the battle for safe drinking water, sanitation, and basic health care.

Kofi Annan