Scaling Frontline works to reach 12,500 New Families in Next Year.

Malnutrition, a threat we have been tackling since independence, is potentially standing in the way of India encashing its demographic dividend. Children who are malnourished perform poorly at school, and earn up to 20% less than well-nourished individuals. Over a lifetime, this translates into remaining in the poverty cycle or plateauing at middle income - shockingly due to poor nutrition as children. 2 out of every 5 children in India are malnourished, linked to 50% of Indian women being anaemic. In the bigger scheme of things, we lose over $ 45 Billion of our GDP to malnutrition each year. 

Our mission at FMCH is to change these numbers. We believe that poor nutrition should no longer be a barrier for individuals to reach full potential. 

If communities and families have access to the right information about the First 1000 Days, they will make the right nutritional choices to ensure we have a world of healthy mothers and children, enabling India to  break the cycle of poverty. 

Key cornerstones of our work are preventive measures - providing research based, contextual, actionable knowledge to communities; using data and technology to retain quality, drive decisions and accountability; and working with various stakeholders in the ecosystem to bring about a sustained behaviour change. We monitor and support the community activities for a year at least to ensure long term, sustainable behaviour change

In order to solve the issue, we address the problem in a holistic way. We build capabilities of frontline workers along with monitoring and support the delivery of the programme. We contextualize the curriculum based on the needs of the community. Post the training, the frontline staff are able to manage the families better with a consistent quality of counselling and information. 

ABOUT THE FRONTLINE WORKERS 

The frontline workers are the crucial change makers at the community level. These teams reach a mother and her child and their family first. Their ability to influence community decisions around food, health and hygiene can prevent major public health disasters. Our aim to enhance the skills of these groups. We use innovative methods like demonstrating solutions that are contextual and continue to reinforce ‘best practices’.

With the strength of our training and support we believe our added cadre of frontline workers can reach more than 12,500 families in low income communities within India.