Hari Shankar
With roots in a low-resource community typical of states like Bihar, Hari Shankar is seen as a force of youthfulness and vibrancy by fellow health sector activists and leaders in Bihar and Jharkhand. He is credited with spearheading a number of strategies to engage members of poor communities as proactive agents in several rural health delivery mechanisms aimed at creating awareness, changing behaviors and practicing self-advocacy.
“A moment of true delight for me is when a poor, illiterate tribal elder in a remote and non-descript hamlet of Jharkhand assertively negotiates for his family’s entitlements with a government health official. The old man probably may never have been to a town all his life, but he is today aware of his rights as a citizen”, says Hari Shankar in recollection of a successful outcome.
Hari Shankar’s unflinching faith in community empowerment as the true catalyst for development has been shaped by his own perseverance as a socially inclined youth and through the guidance and support of senior health activists and practitioners. Since completing his Masters in Rural Management and Development from Patna University in 2003, he has worked with noteworthy health sector organizations including Pathfinder supported training NGO-ASSERT, UNICEF-Patna, CINI and HLFPPT. Currently, he works as the IEC Manager at Medicines Sans Frontiers in Bihar.
“I am happy to have chosen to work on health after securing a professional degree in Rural Development” comments Hari Shankar. “There is so much to be done, and so much promise in sight.” Hari Shankar feels emboldened that professionals in credible organizations expressed confidence in his abilities and entrusted him with the responsibility for increasingly progressive assignments in the highly complex areas of HIV/AIDS and Adolescent Reproductive Health. He identifies the LDM program as a significant contributor to his professional growth in these areas.
“The LDM Fellowship, in particular, not only honed my latent abilities into functional leadership and management skills, but necessarily also exposed me to diverse professionals, institutions and perspectives in health”, he notes. Colleagues find his passion and natural leadership evident even during the LDM Fellows Network activities, (programs organized by Information, Resources and Advocacy Centre (IRAC) in Bihar and Jharkhand), where Hari Shankar is well known as one of the most enthusiastic participants.
“He has an infectious cheer and vibrancy in his persona, and is always willing and ready to learn. This endears him to his fellow workers instantly”, recalls a senior Leadership Fellow, who has known Hari for many years.
Like many Leadership Fellows, Hari sees IRAC as a strategic and high-resource platform for networking and advocacy, with the potential to catapult health managers into influencing vital decision making. The very concept of IRAC, Hari says, influenced him to translate and make accessible the idea of leadership development at a very local level, channeling relevant resources to village communities. The resulting initiative in community organization was the formation of over 190 village resource groups established in Vishnugarh and Icchak blocks of Hazaribagh. And this is only one of his accomplishments.
In the short period of seven years as a health sector professional, Hari has been a salient pioneer in the area of community organization and mobilization. Early on, as an implementer of HLFPPT’s Reproductive Health project in Bihar, he came up with the idea to form what he called Village Health and Sanitation Committees (VHSC) in project area villages. No sooner had the sheer novelty of the idea clinched the support of project management, did Hari and his team successfully form over 40 such units with the compliance and aid of community men and women. This ingenious concept of instituting an no-cost functional node within a community soon found place in India’s largest health initiative, the NRHM.
Hari Shankar’s leadership extends beyond this immediate project, and further impacts the individuals who have gained the opportunity to shape and direct their personal leadership goals by participating on these committees. The fact that most women members of these units have gone on to become Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in their respective villages is a testimony to Hari and his team’s efforts.
Having led many community centered initiatives for various health programs, Hari believes that leading by example is the most effective, yet subtle leadership tool. As a result, he is categorically particular about applying initiatives to himself first, before he expects his team to follow. He feels that exposure to the LDM program has sensitized him just enough to develop and utilize this attitude and similar tools, and has ultimately created a leadership approach that positively impacts all facets of community interaction.