Current Projects under Nutrition programme
Project Title: Empowering Tribal Communities to improve nutrition & Strengthening Awareness on Nutrition related Services in selected tribal blocks of Maharashtra (Community Action for Nutrition)
Project Period: September 2018 to August 2020, extended upto July 2021
Donor Agency: Tribal Development Department, GOM
Background: The Community Action for Nutrition (CAN) process is a novel approach which combines strengthening of the Government systems through active community participation and improvement in household nutrition practices to tackle the grave issue of malnutrition in the state of Maharashtra. Currently this process is being implemented by SATHI as part of the ‘Nutrition Rights Coalition-Maharashtra’ as the State Nodal Agency. Community Action for Nutrition process is supported by Tribal Development Department of Maharashtra.
The Tribal Development Department of the state of Maharashtra is supporting this process in 420 villages/habitations from 10 blocks of 7 tribal district of Maharashtra such as Nandurbar, Gadchiroli, Palghar, Nashik, Thane, Raigad and Pune.
Key processes are as follows–
1. Community Action for Nutrition (CAN) process employs an innovative approach which utilizes community-based monitoring for the strengthening of the nutrition services. In order to accomplish this, the community is made aware of their rights and entitlements. As a result of this awareness, the members of the community are able to identify the gaps in the nutritional services and highlight them which results in an improvement in the services.
2. CAN process combines the rights based approach with reshaping the household nutritional practices through community participation. This is achieved through various dialogues and activities related to the nutrition services and practices carried out at various levels village/habitation to block, district and state level.
3. ‘Convergence from below’ is another goal of the CAN process. To strengthen convergence between the line Departments is essential to achieve the success of the nutrition services and Bharatratna Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Amrut Aahar Yojana. In order to move forward in this direction, CAN process has begun convergence from below by appointing the ASHA worker to implement the CAN process in coordination with Anganwadi Worker. The convergence is then extended to the block and district level during workshops and monitoring committee meetings. Ultimate level of this convergence is then at the state level where all the issues highlighted at the various levels would be resolved with a dialog between all the line Departments.
4. Alongside we attempt to ensure that registration and regular growth monitoring of all the children under the age of 6 years, focussing on growth faltering, Moderate Underweight (MUW) and Severe Underweight (SUW), Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) children.