India: Childhood Malnutrition Eradication Program
Malnutrition Eradication Outreach and Innovation
May 12, 2014
By Michael Matheke-Fischer, Santosh Pal & Amit Purohit
Summary of Activities
RMF’s new program focuses screenings on targeted populations of mothers and families with children under 5 years old in 3 district settings:
- Cluster Screenings that target mothers in a small setting, usually 4-6 mothers, in their houses during the day.
- Evening Screenings that target larger groups of 10-15 families and are screened when male family members can attend to increase their awareness of nutrition and health issues.
- Mangal Diwas Screenings on Tuesdays at the Anganwadi Centre for ration distribution. By adding video screening at the Anganwadi center on Mangal Diwas, RMF aims to both increase participation in ration distribution and also target at-risk families with health information.

Results &
ACCOMPLISHMENTS

More Awareness
Produced 12 Videos
Conducted a total of 502 screenings in 50 villages, reaching 4,391 households. Recorded 108 unique practice adoptions directly resulting from our videos.

Early Intervention
Saving Lives
Identified 415 children suffering from severe malnutrition. Identified 674 new children with moderate malnutrition. Conducted 15,188 family counseling sessions.

Real Progress
Healthy Improvements
Working checking on families saw an improvement in 567 children with severe malnutrition 1,315 children with moderate malnutrition.

Background
& Objectives
Background
This project empowers communities through health literacy and connects rural communities with the government health and nutrition services available. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5, and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities. Our team of up to 75 Community Nutrition Educators (CNEs) and 6 District Coordinators has covered enormous ground across 5 districts and 600 villages in Madhya Pradesh.
Objectives
- To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition.
- Continue to identify new SAM and MAM cases, refer complicated cases to the NRC and provide home-based counseling for all malnourished children
- Refer 1,000 SAM children to government centers for treatment with a 50% success rate Quarterly
- Conduct 2,500 Community Nutrition Meetings Quarterly
- Conduct 9,000 Individual Family Counseling Sessions Quarterly
- Send CNEs to Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers (NRCs) to help counsel families present
- Continue to develop linkages with government health and nutrition services
- Strengthen institutional capacity with support from World Bank’s India Development Marketplace Award.


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Country Page: India
Initiative Page: Childhood Malnutrition Eradication Program