Eating right

Madhya Pradesh aims to eradicate malnutrition by giving children and women the right to nutrition

- SRAVANI SARKAR

TILL ABOUT FOUR years ago, Phoolkumari Kol, a mother of four from Ovari village in tribal-dominated Dabhoura of Rewa district, would hide her children at the sight of an accredited social health activist (ASHA) or Anganwadi worker. Like many mothers in the rural belts of Madhya Pradesh, Kol was worried that getting her children immunised would make them sick and weak. Children, pregnant and lactating women, and adolescent girls in Ovari were, therefore, deprived of health and nutrition services. Instead, they turned to local faith healers, whose ‘cures’ included spitting on children or rubbing saliva on them.

Moreover, Ovari then did not have road connectivity. Thus, key health services like the Janani Express, meant for transporting pregnant women for childbirth via ambulance or government vehicles, never reached the village. There was no electricity either. Add to that the scarcity of water and the non-arable nature of the land. So most families depended on manual labour, the income from which barely got them two meals a day.

In April 2016, four malnourished children from Ovari died within a week. A quick survey revealed that 75 per cent of the children below the age of five were malnourished, with 13 of its 70 children under five years facing severe acute malnutrition. That tragic incident was a wake-up call, both for the state government and the village.

Ovari was included in a community-based malnutrition management project that covered 115 villages of five districts. The project—implemented between 2015 and 2018 by NGO Vikas Samvad, with the support of women and youth groups—aimed to empower the community to find solutions for its issues, especially those related to health and malnutrition. It did that and more.