I spent 3 weeks in Delhi with Asha during May 2013. Asha is a slum development project that has been running in New Delhi for over 25 years. It was founded by a Christian doctor, and seeks to change whole slum communities by providing support, education and healthcare, giving people the motivation and abilities to make lasting changes to their lives.

I visited Asha as I was interested in seeing a holistic project which was changing the social determinants of health such as education and sanitation as well as offering basic healthcare. It was a wonderful thing to see the change that had been achieved in the communities where Asha had been working, in terms of health outcomes, educational opportunities for slum dwellers, but most importantly, the change in people's hearts from coming to know Christ.

The actual healthcare aspects were quite limited, we mainly sat in GP and antenatal clinics. We got to examine patients and refresh O&G knowledge, and help with vaccinations, but due to the busyness of the clinics and our lack of Hindi, we could not play as active a role as we would have liked. We also took English classes with the children in some of the community centres.

I would recommend it to someone looking for something a little different to the standard hospital elective, and who is interested in seeing social change leading to health improvements.

Contact - Dr Kiran Martin, kiranmartin555@gmail.com