To develop positive health seeking behaviour and practices among masse.
Health is one of the basic right of every human being and a comer stone of OPDSP development strategy. Started as an integral part of education program focusing preventive health and awareness rising, it was given the status of
a separate program in 1997. Preventive health has remained the main stay of the program with gradual integration of service delivery in a manner as to ensure the sustainability of the intervention. The focus of the OPDSP health
program has been the grossly neglected aspect of health i.e. sexual and reproductive health and the related issues. OPDSP has set an exemplary standard in the field of sexual and reproductive health interventions through high
quality and impact oriented projects like SAHARA (Sexual Health Awareness Raising Assistance), TASC-AP (Technical Alliance for Social Change and AIDS Prevention) and most recently Hamrahi -Truckers project. In addition to these
projects, OPDSP has endeavored to sustain and spread the learning and essence of health program by integrating it with microfinance resources, thus coming up with an intervention under its Integrated Reproductive Health Program,
known as Sannjh-Family Health Centers (FHCs).
First Sannjh-FHC was inaugurated in June 2004.Number of Health service providers affiliated with Sannjh centres during this year (July 06 -June 07) is Fifty Four (54)
The HIV/AIDS situations in Pakistan has changed dramatically' Pakistan recently graduated from a 'low prevalence' to a 'concentrated epidemic', as HIV prevalence rose Rapidly from 2 to 23% among a high transmission population:
Injecting Drug Users (IDU’s) in Karachi. The national response has been boosted by the development of the National Strategic Framework 2001-2006, and World Bank funding for the Enhanced National HIV/AIDS Control Program to
establish rights-based interventions for normally stigmatized populations such as IDUs, Sex Workers (SWs), Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) and Long Distance Truck Drivers.
Long Distance Truck Drivers, one of the high-risk
groups, have an immense potential of being the group which could be a trigger for an epidemic in Pakistan. They travel with their truck loads all over the country, an estimated number of 22.+50 trucks with an associated staff
of 67,350, move up and down through nine major truck stands in the country.