Community health workers as rights defenders: the Mitanin experience in India

Abstract

Women community health workers from a government run programme in India have been uncommonly successful in combining rights-based advocacy (accountability to their communities) with (nominal) paid work on healthcare tasks by the state. Over two decades 70,000 indigenous women Mitanins or community health workers have advanced community health and gender rights of the broader communities they are part of, and their own labor rights. Being able to strategically advocate for both types of rights is an experience unmatched by their global counterparts. This Note focuses on two elements of the Mitanin pre-emptive learning strategy, the movement-building approach of a government run programme to empower frontline community health workers , and the role of a hybrid agency in prioritising social mobilisation by these workers to improve healthcare delivery.