Fight Against Malnutrition

It is important to create a healthy and happy atmosphere for students as part of health education. Families from underprivileged backgrounds are often not aware of hidden health issues, and remain unaware of serious health challenges that can threaten life. Poverty and the resulting low access to daily nutritious food have already played their part, creating generations of school children who are malnourished, with significant wasting and stunting. As a result, children remain in the classroom with a very low attention span and poor memory. Children who are underweight for their BMI often seem hyperactive, lazy or sleepy in class. Their brain development seems not to support the important mental faculties that help learning, such as perception, memory, attention, reasoning and executive functioning.

It is our earnest desire to prevent further deterioration in the health of children under our care. As a pro-life activity, we aim to create a healthy child for a healthy school, so that each student can recover from the many childhood problems caused by a malnourished background and unaware parents.

Children and women at Murbad

The Fight Against Malnutrition project is an integral part of the health and hygiene work of the Welfare Society for Destitute Children. The project supports many initiatives: providing expert doctors for medical camps; helping with diagnosis where it is not available at government primary health centres; providing nutrition kits every month; helping pregnant women with delivery kits once they are admitted to a government PHC for delivery; providing medical equipment for diagnosis; and providing solar lighting for primary health centres.

Malnourished children

Every month the project organises medical camps at the hospital to prevent malnutrition and child mortality, which are rampant in remote tribal villages where resources and incomes are low. A nutrition kit is handed over to the mother and child (SAM/MAM). The project was initiated and supported by the crucial findings of a pilot project called Fight Against Malnutrition, run by St. Catherine of Siena Education Empowerment at Ekhlahare village, Murbad, Thane district, in 2021–2022.

Doctors and health workers are actively involved so that the nutrition material handed to the family is used to improve the child’s nutrition. Every month the child’s weight and height are checked at the hospital and progress is evaluated. This has created a healthy bond and trust between the hospital and the population, because it has made coming to hospital a happy experience rather than something to fear, as it was when the child was highly malnourished.

Pregnant women

The progress and success of the project led to the next important issue in the fight against malnutrition: the nutritional needs of anaemic pregnant women and mothers. Support for pregnant women began in the second phase of the 2023–2024 financial year, and has been highly appreciated by women and health workers because it addresses underweight and anaemia in pregnancy. This is a very effective way to prevent malnutrition among children. The project receives CSR support from M/s. Informa Markets India Private Limited from May 2022, bringing sustainability to these remote places where NGO presence is absent.

Ladoos made of jaggery and peanut made the difference in gaining the additional weight a child needs, and proved a simple and effective way to deal with malnutrition. Asha workers made sure families took responsibility for providing jaggery-peanut ladoos to children by visiting them, taking photographs and uploading them to a WhatsApp group supervised by doctors and the concerned authorities. Each nutrition kit costs ₹600 per child per month. The material is procured from wholesale shops and includes regular grocery items such as peanut, jaggery, dal, soyabean, matki/moong, cooking oil, poha, masalas and salt.

Delivery kits

The project also provides a delivery kit to pregnant women admitted to hospital for the birth of their child. Dresses for the newborn, a dress for the mother to wear in the delivery room, toiletries for the newborn, and a baby mattress with a mosquito net are included in the delivery kit. This helps women come to hospital without the financial worry of organising these things, and makes the bond with the hospital treasured and precious.

What the project addresses

• To provide adequate social, health and nutritional security to malnourished children through monthly nutrition kit distribution in tribal and semi-tribal villages.
• To provide nutritional support to underweight and anaemic pregnant women in tribal and semi-tribal villages.
• To bring healthy eating behaviour to a selected group, moving away from the current unhealthy eating behaviour based on the food available.
• To support women with hygienic delivery kits, removing the financial stress of organising emergency needs during delivery.
• To encourage women, especially tribal women, to opt for hospital delivery and aftercare.
• To support additional doctors for the medical camp, bring patients to hospital, and provide special medical diagnoses where needed.
• To encourage volunteer involvement and improvement.

Changes we have seen

The intervention aimed to bring behavioural changes in food and eating habits. A few notable changes:

• A visible change in children’s eating habits: eating healthy, nutritious laddoo or chikki instead of unhealthy food.
• Children are not left hungry by parents, since the nutritious laddoo is available when they are hungry.
• Junk food consumption is reduced. Low-cost junk food was an alternative used by many poor parents to satisfy children’s hunger.
• Parents report a sense of responsibility and satisfaction from making laddoos and chikkis for their children under the supervision of an Asha health worker.
• The support helps families reduce health-related tension and brings a certain peace and feeling of protection.
• The number of malnourished children and cases at the PHC has dropped rapidly and has not increased during the period.

Tuberculosis and leprosy patients at Murbad

This project supports the Ni-kshay Mitra Pradhan Mantri Tuberculosis Eradication programme (TB Mukt Bharat) at taluka level, currently Murbad taluka, and reaches out to 9 primary health centres. Leprosy patients are also included in the initiative. Our staff provide ration kits to patients under the supervision of the PHC doctor every month, and food kit distribution is organised at the PHC, where patients come in person. The programme is well accepted by poor patients who depend on government-run primary health centres for medicines. Because the medicines are very high-dose, the food kit supports the patient with additional nutrition, making recovery easier and healthier. The activity is very well accepted by the taluka and district-level Ni-kshay Mitra programme in 2025–2026. Patients include children, women, men and the elderly, who receive a nutrition kit every month through the primary health centres.

Current challenges

One of the key challenges patients face, both children and adults, is a lack of adequate nutrition. Diagnosis and medication are provided by the primary hospitals, but it was noticed that a protein-based healthy diet is missing during treatment, making it difficult for patients to recover. Adequate nutrition for the groups below would help and speed recovery for both children and adults.

Contents of the kit

The kit consists of jaggery, peanut, cooking oil, dal, moong, matki, soyabean, salt, chilli powder, haldi powder and poha. The nutrition kit is purchased from wholesale markets.

Tentative monthly budget

Underweight school children at Bandra

Our school is an ideal place for children to learn about health and stay safe. Through our health education programme and health checkups we have been able to detect cancer, kidney problems, heart problems, diabetes, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS among our children. The school has a clinic and a professional nurse available to monitor the health of students attending daily classes.

Students diagnosed with serious illnesses receive medical follow-up support so that they recover and continue their academic learning. An annual medical checkup is conducted for all students, and child specialists refer children who need further diagnosis and treatment. Diagnosis and treatment are very important because they help parents move to bigger hospitals rather than depending on pavement (galli) clinics. Trust social workers help parents with awareness sessions, guidance, follow-ups and payment of bills, so that students recover from serious illnesses and resume daily classes. Donors who support our initiatives are involved in the programme, so that follow-ups are shared and transparency is maintained.

Underweight children also receive a monthly nutrition kit, supervised by the medical section of St. Catherine. Students’ BMI is checked and those who are underweight are identified. The nutrition kit gives students the opportunity to eat a nutritious snack or meal at home and helps them stay away from junk food when they are hungry. It also creates healthy eating behaviour among students and makes them health conscious at a younger age. This activity focuses on students attending the St. Catherine of Siena school and orphanage at Bandra West, Mumbai. We encourage CSR donors to be involved so that volunteers from CSR organisations participate.