A Tribute to Raj Arole of the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in Jamkhed, India

Dr. Raj Arole with Future Generations Master's Degree Students

The Future Generations Graduate School celebrates the legacy of Raj Arole, who died on May 25, 2011 at the age of 78. Our alumni, faculty, and staff remember him as a “wonderful humanitarian and social reformer, loved, honored and respected by countless people around the world for his lifetime of service to the poor.”

Dr. Raj Arole and his late wife Mabell were among the first global health workers to realize that “the solution is not to build a clinic, but to change the people’s attitudes towards women, children, and the poor.”

They trusted in the capacity of poor, illiterate women to provide basic health services, and as a result achieved a miracle: widespread community collaboration across a divided caste system. For more than 40 years, since the Aroles first arrived in Jamkhed, India in the 1970s, women and farmer’s groups have been working together to reduce child mortality, improve nutrition, revive land and incomes with organic agriculture, and strengthen local governance.

The infant mortality rate in Jamkhed has declined from 176 deaths per 1,000 live births at the outset to 20 at present. Childhood malnutrition, which was present in 40% of the children at the outset, has disappeared. And, the quality of life has improved dramatically as a result of community-led programs.

Since 2003, the Future Generations Graduate School has been visiting Jamkhed as part of its Term One, India Residential. Jamkhed has grown into a world renowned training institute for global health and development practitioners. They have trained more than 11,000 grassroots health workers from around India and 2,000 health workers from 100 different countries outside of India. The villagers themselves do most of the teaching through informal training sessions in the villages. As the Aroles learned, there is no better way to empower someone than to give her or him an opportunity to teach others.

The Comprehensive Rural Health Project in Jamkhed continues under the leadership of Dr. Shobha and Ravi Arole. We encourage you to reach out to Jamkhed and learn more at: www.jamkhed.org.

Please see this New York Times article about Jamkhed entitled Villages Without Doctors by Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist and author, Tina Rosenberg.

Also, attached is an Obituary written by Shobha Arole with photos of Dr. Raj and Mabelle Arole.