Supplementary nutrition to eradicate malnutrition in children and promotion of health seeking behaviour

The village Balidapukur and its residents are standing immersed in social challenges and barriers as far as amenities, health and education facilities, and livelihood sustainability are concerned. Almost all the important components of livelihood are jeopardized and woman and child interests and rights are severely threatened.

If we take a glance at the condition of mother and child health, we can notice that ill health and morbidity are a very usual scenario in this pocket. Immunization, substantial nutrition of children and mothers, and access to other basic health services are lacking severely. Women give birth to low weight and morbid children, causing immature child death. Malnourished children and mothers, morbid and underweight children are found in abound. These indicate an abject condition of mother and child health.

At the same time, the immunization support to mother and child is also in great dearth since there is no clinic functioning in the village. The distant clinic service can reach out to only a few families of the village.

Besides, we also focus on “access to education”. Low literacy level and very poor access to education by the area’s children, especially primary education mirror the community’s social opposition. This scenario helps us understand the perception of community people in achieving their civic amenities. They are fully unaware of child and mother rights and their own development.

Broadly, the problems are classified into the following categories.

• Lack of awareness

• Lack of leadership at the community level and social advocacy

• Minimal access to government services and other civic amenities.

Objective

The main objectives of the project are

• To enhance neo-natal health services for safe motherhood.

• To enhance child fully immunization of 0-2 years age group children.

• To reduce malnutrition and morbidity amongst our target children.

• To enhance the knowledge and practice of the people on the most important health-seeking behaviours through SBCC.

• To change the attitude and practice of the people for accessing government health care service and nutrition support for sustainability and scaling up the project

For instant support to the community, the Implementing Agency/Partner(IA/IP) has designed the project with some service delivery activities for a certain period, for which financial assistance is being sought. The IA/IP will ensure its services are being delivered timely.

Besides service delivery, community empowerment through social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) has also been strategically framed into programme activity for its sustainability at the community level. This part of the programme will purely be mustered up with social mobilization actions which may have to include community-level meetings, interpersonal communication(IPC) and house visits, social advocacy with religious leaders and PRI members etc. In this move, IA/IP will also bear the responsibility of coordinating with the government department for widening access to the services for the people.

Activity

The activities framed in the project are in conformity with programme strategy which will impact the community instantaneously as well as for the long term.

1. Service Delivery- health support to mother and child

This component will have two direct service delivery measures- one is a health check-up camp, and another is nutrition support to children. Both are considered as very important emergency services to the community.

Health Check-Up Camp

-The camps will target the children and mothers, especially pregnant mothers.

-The camp will be surfaced once a week with the help of registered medical practitioners

-The camp will also provide the required medicines to the patients.

Nutrition Support (Supplementary nutrition)

-This activity targets the 7-month to 5 years age group children, basically to provide them with supplementary nutrition. 200 children from 6 months+ to 5 years will be catered with this service primarily.

-The service will be commissioned for 5 days awake.

-Child growth will be monitored in the nutrition camp.

2. Community Mobilization For SBCC

This is a very important part to reach out to target groups and know their problems directly by participatory and interactive methods. This programme component will also play a very proactive role for demand generation on basic health care services and important health-seeking behaviour. The community will be educated and empowered through this social mobilization move. People can voice their rights and needs through this process of communication. The process will coalesce the following actions.

Community Level Meeting

-This is a meeting which ensures participation of mothers, caregivers, parents, local influential people, PRI members and government health machinery at the community level.

-The meetings will be conducted once a month under the aegis of every GP Mobilizer. GP Mobilizer shall be responsible for inviting all resource persons and ensure mothers’ participation.

Inter-Personal Communication(IPC)

-It’s one of the best tools of communication to reach out to target groups for one-on-one interaction. Our trained GP/Community Mobilizers will visit every household of their intervention areas and sensitize mothers and caregivers on various health-seeking behaviours like institutional delivery, exclusive breastfeeding and EIBF, mother and child immunization, hand washing with soap, toilet use and diarrhoea control, etc.

IEC Materials Distribution

-Various IEC materials will be published and distributed in community-level meeting and during house visits. The materials on safe motherhood and other SBCC components like toilet use, neat and cleanliness, diarrhoea control will be handed over to the target groups to sensitize and educate them.

Social Advocacy

-Advocacy with community leaders and religious leaders will also incorporate in this area of communication. It will be helpful to the community.

3. Clinic Day Mobilization

Advocacy and policy influencing will be done to organize immunization sessions either by arranging clinic or out-reach camps/VHNDs by the government. Our social mobilization will be spearheaded to support the clinic by referring our children and pregnant mothers and this mobilization will take place one and two days before the clinic. This will be done on the basis of Field Register and Due List. Every of our GP/Community Mobilizers will extend their support to the session sites.

4. Training

A two-day training will be imparted to analyze the present situation of healthcare services and access to immunization programmes, along with technical know-how of the proposed programme. The training agenda will also include the process of skill development on communication and to identify the issues to be addressed at the community level.

Our project machinery, government officials, PRI members, community level influencers, and the organization’s key staff will be the participants of the training. The participant size of every meeting will be between from 20 to 25.

5. Monthly Review Meeting

Activities of every preceding month will be reviewed within the first five days of the ongoing month. In the review meeting, the field level data placed by GP/Community Mobilizers will be analyzed and validated with their Field Register and immunization duelist. In this review meeting, the field level problems and mitigating strategy will also be discussed.

Monitoring & Evaluation

From the very beginning of project implementation, its activities will be monitored periodically. A weekly monitoring system will be opted for measuring the progress and deviations.

Weekly monitoring report will be collated and proffered to the Monthly Review Meeting for finding results, indicator wise. Report of review meeting will be placed to the organization for evaluation.

Output

 85 pregnant mothers will be benefited through immunization and neonatal health care services; of which 50 are new mothers (women are going to give birth first time).

 32 0-1 year children will be vaccinated in RI session sites and organization’s health camps.

 200 children from 7 months to 5 years age group will be provided with supplementary nutrition.

 400 ailing people will receive their treatment from health camp every month.

Outcome

 People, especially mothers, caregivers and parents will get the right information and educate themselves on mother and child health and other health-seeking behaviours.

 The entire community will be sensitized on the impact of the programme which will help the programme to be sustained in the community.

Performance Indicators

Few important indicators will be set forth from the beginning of project implementation and for which the field level data will be tracked. The indicators will be measured periodically to ascertain programme direction- whether or not the project activities spur in the right way. The indicators are

 50% increase in neonatal health care services within the project period.

 80% increase in child immunization i.e. RI.

 30% improvement in child growth in weight through supplementary nutrition.

 20% increase in institutional delivery.

 30% increase in EBF(exclusive breastfeeding)

 40% increase in knowledge and practice of handwashing with soap

 50% increase in toilet system use.

 20% increase in diarrhoea control knowledge and a 15% increase in its practice.

The above-mentioned growth in percentage is a projection of our project achievement which has been set based on the organization’s managerial capacity and expertise.