TB Awareness and Foldscope Demonstration

Aware & Inspire

After the visits to Genepath Lab & Jehangir Hospital, we decided to propagate the TB literacy that we had acquired, to the societal section, which needs it the most. We spent the Sunday afternoon of 13 September with students at Disha.

Disha is a voluntary organisation, initiated by IISER students that functions to educate children who lack resources, through innovation. Disha has now grown beyond IISER and has officially achieved the status of an NGO. It runs various programs for students studying in classes 4 to 12, who study in corporation schools. One of the pivotal programs of Disha is the ‘weekend program’ which enrolls students of classes 7 to 10. These students meetup in IISER on every Sunday to discuss their academics with each other and to get help from Disha volunteers. A necessary epilogue to academics, on which Disha volunteers emphasise, is exposing these students to the approach of rational inquiry, to the fun and technique of arts and craft and to the developments in science and technology; to give them that, what they usually don’t get.

We conducted an afternoon long session with them, which was sectioned in two parts.

• The first part was a discussion on TB involving the following issues -

  • Biology & bacteria
  • Infection & disease
  • Introduction to TB as a bacterial disease
  • Signs & symptoms of TB
  • Distinguishing TB from regular cough
  • Treatment : Availability, accessibility & affordability of TB cure
  • Societal perception : A change needed

  Our motive behind this was to make them aware about the gravity of the issue and equip them with one of the greatest mitigation tool in public health - awareness itself. This session was particularly relevant to these students, as almost all of them reside in localities that are potential sites of such epidemics due to negligence towards health & illiteracy towards hygiene.

• The second part of the session was a more fun one. We demonstrated to them construction of Foldscope, which was then used to perform videography of few bacterial slides by connecting the Foldscope to an iPad. The students then were provided materials (cardboard paper & PDMS lens) to make simple paper-based microscopes of & on their own. Our team members along with the volunteers, explained to them -

  • Need for microscopy
  • Optics behind it
  • Revolutionary impact on science
  • Different microscopes : as function of resolution & cost
  • Advantages of Foldscope

  The basic idea was to instill in them an idea of simple & elegant solution to “big” problems. The program was conducted in Marathi which is the native language of these students. The support from volunteers & enthusiasm of students intertwined to generate a response that helped us realise the social & human relevance of our project.