Drs. Shalini and Anil Ninan Cherian were awarded  the College Motto Award for the year 2012, which recognises and celebrates each year an alumnus whose life and work has exemplified the motto of the Christian Medical College Vellore, ‘not to be served but to serve’. For the determination, selflessness and courage, they have pursued in their calling and for their exceptional contribution and service to the marginalised of our country, the seventh College Motto Award was presented to them, both from the batch of 1983, at the Alumni Reunion in August 2012. This award was Instituted by the batch of 1949.

In 1994 after completion of their post graduate training, Tina in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Anil in Paediatrics, and subsequently public health, the avenues open to them were numerous. But they had a passion – to work at the grass root level, empower the community through training and education and work towards equality of health. They worked at various EHA hospitals.

In 2006, Tina and Anil took over the clinical and administrative responsibilities Chattarpur. They transformed a setting where hospital deliveries were taboo, trained dhais not allowed to assist deliveries, and untouchability rife, into a campus where more than 1500 caesarean sections were performed, where hospital utilization and deliveries increased by 350% and a successful adolescent girls’ training programme on life skills and hygiene took off.

By training the nurses they demonstrated a feasible working model for settings with constraints in human resources. Being a HIV prone area, they embarked on education of the locals on HIV prevention. Together they planned, implemented and supervised a Reproductive and Child Health Project in a population of 60,000 and coordinated with the government in the training of health professionals using the syndromic approach. Tina trained other medical teams for emergency obstetric care after completing a training course in Sweden.

Anil moved in 2007 to Delhi as the Director of Community Health and Development for EHA, overseeing the implementation of 29 community health and development projects, spread over 7 states in the North and North East of India. He has developed and conceptualized EHA’s programme of engagement with poor urban and rural communities in health and development, crossing the boundary of medicine, developing new programmes like micro-health insurance and community based rehabilitation.

After more than 10 years of being first call on duty at Chattapur, Tina has just moved to Delhi, taking a new position as coordinator for Reproductive and Child Health Services at EHA where she will support 20 rural hospitals in training, establishing quality maternal health and neonatal care services, networking with the NRHM and the Safe Motherhood Programme in India and WHO in promoting Maternal and Neonatal Survival.