Welcome to Clearing The Haze –Making the invisible visible, a podcast show that discusses topics that are usually invisible or just hazy. Hosted by Shachi Irde.

Shachi wears many hats and is passionate about inclusion. She is an industry recognized speaker on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and women in the workplace related topics. She has been recognized by numerous industry forums and has been recipient of “Iconic woman in leadership” award by All Women Economic Forum.

Our topic for today - The Bitter Pill. In this episode we will discuss on the primary healthcare challenges for women in vulnerable sections of society

Good health is first essential for survival and then for quality of life. Improvement in health status of the people has often been regarded as an index of social development. Reports also state that the health of a country's female population has profound implications on the health and education of children.

Our guests for this discussion are - Monalisa Padhee and Shruthi Iyer.

Monalisa is the Program Head of  Women Wellness Initiative at Barefoot College International. In her role, she works on delivering health care interventions directed at disrupting the "intergenerational cycle of poor health" in rural girls and women. She is a Gender lab fellow at Swedish Institute and is an alumni of Aspen New Voices and fellowship and a senior fellow at Atlantic Institute. Dr Padhee holds a doctoral degree in Medical Science from University of South Australia.

Shruthi currently works with Foundation of Mother and Child Health (FMCH) as the CEO. Prior to this, she was an independent consultant in the development space focusing on strategy, fundraising and business model development. Before this, she was working with Mentor Me India, an NGO based out of Mumbai in the capacity of the Executive Director. She is an engineer from VTU, and worked with Infosys before doing the Teach for India Fellowship. She is also an Acumen Fellow.

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Podcast Summary: The Bitter Pill

Host: Shachi Irde

00:00: Introduction

01:37: About Monalisa and Shruthi and their work.

05:14: Shruthi - How did you get interested in the first thousand days of a child?

07:03: Monalisa - what has been your experience?

13:48: How have you coped with the challenges this pandemic has thrown?

16:50: Shruthi - please share some simple, impactful solutions that you have come up with.

20:00: Please share some stories of how you have changed somebody’s life.

24:34: What is the one thing that frustrates you?

31:09: Would you like to share any message for our listeners?

33:49: Conclusion. Outro.

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For this episode, we would like to thank:

- Our 2 guests : Monalisa Padhee & Shruthi Iyer
- Sanjana Sarkar - Director, French Institute in India, Jaipur

-  The French Embassy, the French Institute and the Alliance Française Network in India for producing the show
and, special thanks to Hemant Soreng and his team for their advice and technical support.

Please do subscribe and review the show in various podcasting platforms and in the website afindia.org/podcast. Listen in to the voices that are often invisible but powerful enough to clear the haze.

Disclaimer: The views, experiences and opinions expressed in this podcast are personal views of the participating speakers and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the French Embassy or its cooperation network in India.