Time flies! and yet again we concluded 2020-2021 as a year in the world. Our world today faces cascading risks that emerge from a pandemic like COVID-19, natural disasters, climate change and the public health consequences that emerge with it. Together we will face it and leave no one behind as we create a resilient world. Since 2014, CHD Group has grown from strength to strength across the length and breadth of our nation. We move forward with concrete steps undertaken to now snowball our collective vision and effort across India and the Asia Pacific Region.
Entering livelihood sector
It was un-thinkable for us in 2014 to talk about livelihood although we supported the very idea of it. A COVID-19 pandemic pushed us to re-think how we could re-imagine and create the future of human requirements through skilling. This year we commissioned our first Course on Home Health Aide which completed successfully and officially announced our arrival into the space of livelihood under the broad umbrella of public health. Looking back and seeing how this has transformed lives is a satisfaction we can be grateful towards and excited to what it is going to be in days and months to come. We now venture to skill public health assistants & nursing aides who will be torch bearers of India’s grassroot force in healthcare across the nation.
Stretching capacities like never before
CHD Group until 2017 was a modest institution. It started to grow after 2018 both in quality, strength and sustained impact. Yet compared to other age-old firms in the development sector we would be considered tiny. But something changed with COVID-19. It stretched our capacities like never before and delivering quality programmes across the country in the middle of the most stringent lockdown in the world was a very satisfying accomplishment and we are very proud of it. For our team at CHD Group, 2020 marked a eureka moment. We delivered on-going quality results at the national stage and watching this happen was the most beautiful and priceless feeling which I can never put into words, but only appreciate in the remembering.
Commissioning of the Edward & Cynthia Institute of Public Health (ECIPH)
You will probably here more about this in the years ahead as it gets more exciting and as the entire building comes up. This year CHD Group officially commissioned the Edward and Cynthia Institute of Public Health (ECIPH) and the CHD Innovation Room. This is the place where public health ideas for a new world are born, streamlined and amplified for the world at large. I would like this to be an independent story not crowded in the popular work which CHD Group executes in the field. So for now, this is where I will park.
Appeal for re-assessing development priorities
CHD Group has stood for values, for faith, for strategy and for re-imagining and strengthening processes with a lighting speed implementation of the work there is to do. We appeal to visionary partners, decision makers and public representatives to mainstream public health in all policies to create a more meaningful future for our children and their children’s children.
We at CHD Group stand humbled and grateful to our stakeholders in governments, among corporations and at the United Nations who believed in us at every stage. We also remain extremely thankful to our colleagues and team members because of whom we have arrived. We assure each of you that we at CHD Group will always innovate, drive and champion social development and progress in ways that you have never seen before and that will remain our brand incarnate in enabling humanity’s progress ahead.
In conclusion, I ask of you to be safe and responsible. Be certain that this pandemic will end, this moment will pass and our lives will be stronger again. But have faith. Faith in our ability to thrive, faith in our ability to defeat the virus and faith in our ability to emerge better and mightier.
Ever truly, yours
Dr. Edmond Fernandes, MBBS, MD, PGD-PHSM
Founder & CEO