Abstract

In the DANLEP assisted districts of Madhya Pradesh (MP), Orissa and Tamil Nadu (TN) leprosy is no longer looked upon as a dreaded disease. While misconceptions about the disease still continue to hold sway in some areas, the changes that have come about in these districts in just twelve years are remarkable. Not surprisingly, they are largely due to the committed and indefatigable work put in by government leprosy workers who were involved in participatory and innovative training programmes and were thus able to bring about a new approach: PAK, or practice, attitude and knowledge. It is this approach that has largely been responsible for the change.

This book traces the history of this process of change. It looks at when and how it came about, who or what were the agents and catalysts of such change, how the different actors have worked together to make the change into something that is long term and sustainable, and what, in the new and changed environment, the future can hold. Our attempt at putting together such a publication is to record an important process and intervention in the public health field in India. In doing so, we hope also to point to its possible replicability in other areas and fields, and to provide a document from which field level functionaries in the area of health can perhaps take away some important and key lessons for their own work.