Provide Nutritional Support to 500 Poor Children

Malnourishment… a curse to development

No country can afford to risk its valuable assets which are its youth children. However, in developing countries like India, children fail to achieve their full potential and growth. One of the causes is malnutrition and deficiencies which permanently damage their health and abilities. Short-term hunger and nutritional deficiencies limit children’s performance at school. Increasingly in this world, it is intellectual resources, not natural or physical resources that determine national power. How can a nation like India compete internationally when 20–50 percent of its population is intellectually compromised? Besides affecting physical growth and development, malnourishment is seen to cause behavioral problems. Undernourished children lack energy, so they become less curious and playful and communicate less with those around them, which impairs their physical, mental and cognitive development. In the classroom setting, even a single child’s behavior can affect the rest of the students, the teacher’s attention and the overall learning atmosphere. Hunger not only disturbs the affected child’s learning, but impacting others too. Since the child survival revolution has saved so many children’s lives and Right to Education has ensured primary education for majority of the children, it was now the right time to focus on the quality of life and health of the survivors.So there is a critical need to feed and nourish the children, the future!

 A holistic approach to the issue of undernourished children

Maintaining a balanced diet and regular exercise was important for 500 slum children enrolled for remedial education with AROH Foundation in the Sangam Vihar Slums of National Capital Delhi. These are government school going poverty stuck and malnourished. Since these children were already struggling to get their daily meals, food item with instant and better energy content were planned to meet various vitamins and essential nutrient supplements.

Donors' generous contribution was utilised to reduce malnourishment in 500 slum children for a period of 6 months. Daily supplements were introduced to all children in order to ensure impactful outcomes from the initiative. Selection of food items was done on the basis of their existing diet patterns, the food intake at home and at school through mid day meals. Children were given ready to eat nitritive foods such as milk, biscuits, fruits and juices on daily basis. 

Children were given freshly procured fruits from local markets at the end of classroom sessions. A drastic change in the classroom ambience was been witnessed, absenteeism from class has reduced and a cumulative impact of regular nourishment, health checkups and activities has given visible and positive results.

We also did pre and post health analysis of sample of children, which has shown positive inclination towards the results. Hunger not only disturbs the affected child’s learning, but the learning of others as well. To combat this barrier, children are provided with nutritional supplements in the form of milk, juices, fruits etc time to time ensuring better health.  Thus ensuring a healthier child! 

Neelam, 11 years is a bright girl studying in RISE holds high aspirations in life. Absolute poverty in her family had deterred the pursuit of her education. Because of financial crisis, Education was not deemed to be of much importance. Not just her education, but financial struggles had taken over her health too. She was usually dizzy, inattentive and low in the class. Despite motivating educators, children were lagging behind in their performances. The reason was not in the brain but in their stomach. They were severely malnourished, anemic and clogged with unknown and unidentified diseases.  When Neelam went for her health check she was diagnosed as an anemic with a measure of 10.5 g/dL and a BMI of 14.6.

Similar was the case of all other 500 children with RISE. That’s where AROH released that for overall development of our 500 children, along with mental development, physical & psychological development should be of prime focus.

With the kind donations of generous donors from GlobalGiving, AROH has been adding continuous nutritional supplement to all 500 children to combat these issues. Not just timely supplements but regular health checkups, medicines and counseling have helped many like Neelam to attain a better frame of health and brain. Now, after 4 months, Neelam has better hemoglobin level of 13.6 g/dL (which is normal) and a better BMI of 15.6 (which still is under weight).

We have started with baby steps to curb down a giant problem of India. This was impossible if generous fund raisers from GlobalGiving had not pitched in for the mission. Results have been amazing within a very short span of time. We’d like all of them to know that your thoughtfulness is truly making a difference in the lives of so many under privileged slum children and that each of them knows that there is someone watching and taking care of them!