Hi
This is Neelam the PFECT project Nurse with another update about our Nutritional Meal programme.
It is a shame in a rapidly developing country that so many children are under nourished.
This is from the Global Hunger Index.
Over three years, the country (INDIA) has slipped from 55th position to the current 100th rank. The index shows that more than a fifth of Indian children under the age of five are malnourished and weigh too little for their height, reported the Business Standard.
India ranked third-worst among all the Asian countries, better only than Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the body that prepared the GHI report.
...
The report stated that as of 2015-16, 21 percent of India's children suffered from child wasting (low weight and height), which went up by a percent from 2005-2006. Other than India, only three countries showed child wasting above 20 percent, the reported noted.
P K Joshi, director of IFPRI director for South Asia, said that despite efforts, many poor in India are at the risk of malnourishment in 2017, primarily due to drought and structural deficiencies.
"With a GHI score that is near the high end of the serious category, it is obvious that a high GDP growth rate alone is no guarantee of food and nutrition security for India's clear majority.
As you know we don’t dole out food, the meal ,as regular followers of the project will know is a community affair. This is what one village woman has to say.
“Although the meal is only once or twice a week we do see the benefits on our children’s health and wellbeing. They do not seem to suffer from stunted growth like many children in nearby villages. The health team from People First take a lot of care in providing a meal with protein oils and vitamins our children need to grow strong and healthy. We are so glad to help on a sharing basis in the preparation and serving of the food which brings the whole community together”
“Thank you for helping us”
We may not be able to solve the problem of undersized and undernourished children in India but we can save the children of one or two villages with your kind help and assistance.
Neelam
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Hi Everyone
This is Neelam the senior nurse from the health project. Its time for another project report.
The rains have come to Bihar and the race is on to plant the rice. When visitors come here at this time of year they remark on how verdant the fields are and how India is full of color and the smiles of the children who have so little in terms of possessions of any kind including clothes.
Its sometimes easy to romanticise the simple rural life as if were a lifestyle choice.
Of course life is a struggle here for so many here in some of the poorest villages in Rural India. Whilst starvation deaths are rare the scale of growth stunting undersized children for thier age and malnutrition here in Bihar is one of the worst in the world. It has been called a national disgrace and readers of previous reports will be aware of the details that we have covered before.
I wish I could say that health services are better here in the villages. I wish I could say that our nutritious meal program was no longer needed. Sadly I am unable to report real progress in health care service provision on any meaningful scale here in Bihar.
But that does not mean that there is no affect of our programs on the local community. In the villages that we work the maternal health has been improved a lot..
This was Dr Verma our medical consultant says..
'I can tell you from years of medical check ups and the projects meticulous record keeping including case histories and patient details that the beneficial effects of the project on the populations health is proven.
The nutritional meal program provides oils and protein that the children would not be able to consume in the qualities and quantity provided.
The beneficial effects on the children are measurable in terms of no malnutrition or stunted growth in the villages providing the meal'
Thanks for your vital support
Neelam.
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
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India is hungry. Not just for economic development and social justice, but for grain, for fruit, for seed, for poultry, for milk. The most rustic kind of hunger, is the hunger of both the father mother and the child for survival. India is one of the highest ranking countries in the world in children suffering from malnutrition.
In its annual calculations of the Gross Hunger Index (GHI) for 2016, The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) placed India at 97 among 118 developing countries. Those worse than India were Niger, Chad, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Neighbouring countries that scored better were Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and China.
As reported by Times of India in Patna,
Bihar is one of the most undernourished states.
"With the percentage of stunted children being around 48.3%, Bihar is one of the most undernourished states of India, as per the National Family Health Survey 4 (NFHS)
Our Nutritious meal programme brings a healthy protein meal to children which makes all the difference in terms of health.
It is not doled out in a humiliating fashion but it is prepared by the community in a way which brings them together in the preparation, serving and sharing of the food with the most vulnerable members of the local community.
Thank you for your support, you are putting smiles on the faces of the children and hot delicious healthy food in their stomachs!
Neelam
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My name is Priyanka (we have changed the name per personal privacy guidelines),
I am about 25 years of age and I have six children, four boys and two girls. Our village is mainly those of the Dalit caste and our houses are made of mud with straw roofs. It is too much cold in the winter and too much hot in the summer. Like so many in our village we don’t own land but work the land of others. Sometimes visitors come and they see the green fertile fields and they say “how the crop grows at least we have food”. But we are not allowed to take food from the fields for they don’t belong to us, we may be given a small amount of rice for a day’s labour or payment of 350 rupees for a day’s work ($5)
I am one of the cooks for the special meal. We take in turns and work together to produce a protein rich rice mix with papad and chutney and spicy potatoes. We also add oil to help the taste and goodness of the meal. We work with joy in our hearts this brings the village together as this meal helps our children’s health and wellbeing a lot. We have to make sure that there is enough for everybody who needs it so we can make enough for over 200 people.
Thank you so much for thinking of us, for helping us and for your kindness.
Life is hard here, but this meal programme helps so much,
Priyanka
Village Woman and special meal cook.
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Hi!, this is Neelam, the project nurse with the community health team.
Well we all enjoyed Diwali and it is the time of chhach which is the festival concerning the worship of the sun and is practised here especially in Bihar mostly by women.
Every time I travel in India I see the progress made in our great nation but coming back to Bihar is like travelling back in time, so much poverty here and the development that is taking place does not benefit the millions of people struggling below the poverty line. We see this every single day and one of the biggest problems is underfed children.
This is from the newspaper business today in India
"Why are so many Indian children short for their age, or stunted? Cognisant of the country’s nutrition problem, especially among children, the Government has made concerted efforts to get food to children and their families through various initiatives. India has undoubtedly made progress about child undernutrition with stunting rates dropping from 48 per cent in 2006 to 38.7 per cent in 2015. Yet India continues to be home to a staggering 48 million stunted children under age 5 — the highest in the world, many in the country’s poorest state, Bihar.
Stunting, where children are short for their age, results from severe and persistent undernutrition. While the lack of nutritious food significantly contributes to undernutrition, the World Health Organization estimates that half of all undernutrition is associated with diarrhoea and infections resulting from unsafe water and sanitation, and unhealthy hygiene behaviours. Repeated diarrhoea in the first two years of life directly contributes to a quarter of all cases of stunting, with WASH responsible for a majority 88 percentage of all diarrhoea cases. WASH contributes to diarrhoea through several key routes. First, when people lack access to adequate sanitation, they often defecate in the open, polluting water sources used for drinking, cooking, and washing purposes. When people don’t have access to safe drinking water or resources to make water safe, they end up consuming contaminated water. And lastly, when people do not have awareness about the importance of hygiene or access to adequate hygiene facilities such as water and soap, they may not wash their hands at critical times like after defecation and before they eat, which leads to germs entering their bodies and their children’s bodies when they prepare and eat food.
Children who drink unclean water contaminated by faecal matter, or are unable to wash their hands after defecating and before eating are vulnerable to diarrhoea, intestinal worm and other infections. What is particularly harmful about these conditions is that they prevent a child’s intestines from absorbing nutrients, preventing physical and cognitive growth. Research suggests that children can become stunted if they experience five or more cases of diarrhoea before their second birthday. Stunting is irreversible after age two, and its effects are long-lasting in terms of educational performance, health, and future potential".
From business today India October 2016
I want to thank you all for your donations to help us bring a nutritious meal to all the children of the village, and I can tell you that the children there are growing at normal levels. Thanks to you.
If you are thinking of giving another donation ot recommending this project to others, please make it on Giving Tuesday 29th November as Global Giving has a record amount of matching funds which will make your donation go much further and help us feed many more children.
Please kindly make a note of it and, once again thank you,
Neelam
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