India: Childhood Malnutrition Eradication Program

Project Goal:
 
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.  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.
 
This project empowers communities through health literacy and connects rural communities with the government health and nutrition services available.
 
RMF does not just act as a catalyst mobilizing communities to the resources available, but also works on a more intimate level with government health and nutrition workers and Village Health and Sanitation Committees to help build their capacity towards social mobilization, referrals, and provision of effective nutrition counseling. Throughout this year RMF has been gradually transferring the responsibilities of our CNEs to government supervisors and Anganwadi workers, helping integrate RMF’s work into the government framework to ensure long-term sustainability.

Project Objectives during this reporting period:

• To continue to build on current level of programming, strengthen teams’ capacities and prepare to expand
• Continue to develop linkages with government health and nutrition services
• Continue to produce and screen nutrition and health based videos in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh
• Strengthen institutional capacity with support from World Bank’s India Development Marketplace
• Undertake programmatic & financial consolidation of World Bank Funded Malnutrion Eradication Program
• Provide required support to “Impact Partners in Social Change” the research agency in the process of data interpretation & preparation of impact study report
• Continue conducting performance appraisal of the program implementing teams
• Start conducting institutional strengthening & capacity building of the teams to take on larger responsibilities so as to add on other thematic areas of public health
• Explore partnership opportunities for program development

Summary of activities carried out during the reporting period under each project objective:

• Drafted, designed & printed dissemination materias for World Bank Global Sankalp Summit Delhi. Prepared RMF India programme leaflet, two- pager on findings of impact study and final report of impact study.
• 8 RMF-India Program banners were drafted & designed for putting up at Sankalp Summit stall.
• Got transcribed one video from Korku dialect to Hindi and English and subtitiled it in English; disseminated this video at the RMF stall that RMNT team put together during Global Sankalp Summit.
• Director of Programmes and Director of Operations attended the 2-day Global Sankalp Summit in Delhi on 9-10 April 2015.
• During the summit we disseminated our work and shared impact study reports along with RMF brochures with World Bank delegates and others.
• Coordinated with Adolescent Consultant to finalize adolescent training manual for the Catapult project for Adolescent Girls.
• Follow up with Jeevika Bihar, revised budget as per the discussion with Nodal point person from Jeevika.
• Director of Progammes and Director of Operations attended rounds of meetings and held deliberations to discuss the project partnership between RMNT and Jeevika. Many rounds of dialogue went on with Jeevika Bihar, including a presentation to CEO, Mr. Apollo Purthi and Senior Officer Ms. Mahua Rai Choudhary.
• Restrategized, reformulated & represented Jeevika partnership proposal along with a revised budget.
• Worked closely with MSF India & Jeevika team to take the clinical partnership for the proposed District of Darbhanga.  Facilitated a meeting of senior MSF faculties with those of Jeevika leadership at Patna, and discussed sustainability with MSF.
• Prepared RMF India scale up proposal.
• RMNT team worked closely with RMF team to design RMNT website. Provided relevant resource-based support to the HQ team.
• Director of Programmes discussed with Ms Stella, Dimagi, Country Head, and Mr. Vishwajeet about Amplifying the Nutrition Impact of Agriculture in India.
• District Coordinator Khandwa and District Coordinator Barwani along with Project Manager identified and nominated  as ‘Mentors’ by ICDS, Woment and Child Development Department, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh to provide training on Community Leadership with special reference to Women and Child development. On GoMP invitation, they attended 10-day training in Gramodaya University, Chitrakoot, MP. They received certificate of their participation to act as mentors for providing training to field worker and supervisory cadre of Women and Child Development Departments.
• Director of Programmes discussed a partnership frame with with DASRA Society.
• District Coordinators prepared 60 case studies on our malnutrition program, helped by Project Manager and Director of Operations in the process.
• Restrategized Catapult roll-out plan, finalized the training curriculum and team placements and devised the road-map for roll out from July onwards.
• Entered into dialogues with Taru Leading Edge and Micro Insurance Academy for future collaborations and partnerships.

Since our Malnutrition Eradication Initiative began in 2010 this program directly impacted:

• 3,292 children who have received lifesaving treatment
• 36,230 children who have improved directly through our intervention
• 487,889 individuals from rural villages who have received training on malnutrition awareness and prevention in their villages
• The families of the 66 women RMF employs as part of this initiative, many of whom are from the intervention villages themselves and use their salary from RMF to support their children’s education and to improve the lives of their families.