Nutrition India Program

Nutrition India Program

When considering the growth and development of a country, especially a country like India, a ground level reality check needs to be encouraged. The first step towards achieving this is to consider the nutrition intake of the population. In an attempt to get to the core of one such issue that indirectly affects the growth of our country, Reckkit and Benckiser have partnered up with the Maharashtra Government's initiative of Poshan Abhiyaan. This initiative aims at bringing a change in the acute malnutrition in children in two districts of Amravati and Nandurbar.

This innovative attempt, Nutrition India Programme is a multi-staker initiative that aims at achieving a groundbreaking success in 1000 villages to work towards monitoring and developing the nutrition intake in children for first 1000 days (0-2 years) of their lives by 2023. This initiative does not limit itself to just children, it also focuses on maternal health and hygiene through two critical themes- Maternal and Infant Nutrition, and Water Sanitation and Hygiene.

In order to facilitate with the entire process, Dure Technologies has partnered with Nutrition Indian Programme by providing Monitoring, Learning and Evaluating (MLE) solutions. With this partnership we intend to provide help in real-time capturing of inputs from the field, in tracking progress of individuals who are at risk and not just initially but throughout their journey in the programme at multiple touch points. With this technology, we will also be able to track Community events which are aimed at sociocultural behaviour change. Some of these Community events include the colour-coded plates in helping spread awareness about nutrition by making the villagers include all food groups to their daily diet, Glitter Game for raising awareness about hand washing and hygiene in general and other interactive activities like kaleidoscope projection and Nutrition Mania which is a card game. All of these activities and games aim to spread awareness about hygiene and nutrition.

With Dure's technology, the field supervisors and program managers are also provided with dashboard to enable monitoring the performance on a daily basis while simultaneously being able to analyse and evaluate the progress on certain key program indicators quarterly.

As an extension to this nutrition plan, breastfeeding and awareness about breastfeeding also figures very potently in the Poshan Abhiyaan. To commemorate the Innocenti Declaration signed in August 1990 by government policymakers, WHO, UNICEF and other organizations to protect, promote and support breastfeeding, World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from 1st to 7th August. Breastfeeding has been promoted repeatedly by WHO as the best source of nutrition for infants which would lead to optimal growth and good health of young children. The Nutrition India Program also aims at making mothers aware of the benefits of breastfeeding such as reducing the risk of developing breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart diseases. It focuses on reducing Stunting and Wasting among children in Maharashtra. This program also follows the guidelines by WHO regarding the exclusive breastfeeding after one hour of birth of the baby until he/she is six months old, after which it is complemented with nutritious foods till the baby is 2 years old and even beyond. Under this program, breastfeeding women are trained by professionals to trigger positive behaviour among them.

In order to provide a healthier environment and for spreading awareness about nutrition to pregnant women, new mothers and young children, Dure technologies has developed an evidence-based integrated approach, real-time data capturing and visualisation to keep a record and for continuous evaluation of the data to enable dynamic intervention refinement through a mobile application. With Dure's advanced technology we also provide interactive maps and individual level data analysis via the Management Information System (MIS). With our innovative technology, we provide role-based secure access that is available both in online and offline modes. We also aim at bringing the best possible data entry tools for which we have enabled geo-localised data entry and auto-alert along with being trilingual for easy access to people speaking English, Hindi and Marathi.

With Dure's intervention in this Plan, we aim to facilitate the families who bring children who are identified with SAM/MAM/SUW, high risk pregnant women and mothers who have children below the age of 6 (facing issues in lactation) and have attended the VHSNDs to the NRC to receive their vouchers to be able to avail and purchase the services such as SBCC tools and hygiene products from the knowledge providers. This voucher scheme would also help high-risk pregnant women to enable them to reach the district hospital three days prior to their delivery and avail the benefits of pre-natal care under the government scheme, Mayer Ghar.

Our target client registration is a very easy process of registering high-risk pregnant women, mothers facing issues in lactation and SAM/MAM/SUW children on the mobile application. After the initial registration, a unique ID is generated on the basis of the census code of each village. This process is then proceeded by household level periodic interventions that take place every 15 days. Under this registration, the services offered are immunization, AWC services, nutrition and CMAM, ante-natal and post-natal check up, and mother group meeting. Further, we also help logging presence of key stakeholders, i.e., ASHA, ANM, AWW, and PRI representatives.

Our aim is to provide the best and most innovative of technological solutions to ease data collection and multi-level data analysis with real-time capturing and visualisation. The primary aim of our company is to provide a platform to assess risk and do the necessary enrolment at the ground level, facilitate periodic followup and service delivery, help develop behavioural change and communication, and ease referrals and treatment to improve health outcomes. With this initiative, we hope to serve our part in supporting Mother-Child journey through care continuum.