Rajasthan

Baran, a district in the southwest region of Rajasthan, India, consists largely of tribal population. Most of the tribal families here survive on small-scale farming, manual labour or the sale of minor forest produce.

ADDRESSING MALNUTRITION IN BARAN

While agriculture is rain dependent and therefore seasonal, manual labour and forest produce do not provide a fixed source of income either.

Some of the tribal communities, such as the Sahariya’s, tend to migrate as a community and thus suffer from nutrition and food insecurity. An acute lack of income and nutrition security owing to geographical and cultural reasons has resulted in children form these tribes falling victim to the vicious cycle of hunger. Where undernourished children grow up to undernourished parents and further give birth to undernourished babies thus propagating the never-ending cycle of malnutrition.


Screening a child for signs of malnutrition

Action Against Hunger started its work in Baran in 2011 as one of the few organizations working specifically on malnutrition and its related causes. Our work spans 3 broad categories –

  1. Treatment – Providing home based treatment to children suffering from moderate acute malnutrition and referring children with severe acute malnutrition to the nearest Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers (NRC)
  2. Prevention – Counsel and educate mothers and the community at large on the causes and symptoms of malnutrition, maternal and child nutrition, sanitation etc.
  3. Sustainability – Training Anganwadi and ASHA workers on identifying the early signs of malnutrition and taking corrective actions.


Mothers and children from our program with the Honourable Chief Minister of Rajasthan Smt. Vasundhara Raje.

ADDRESSING MALNUTRITION IN BARAN

Action Against Hunger is a technical partner for POSHAN (Proactive and Optimum care of children, through Social- Household Approach for Nutrition), a joint initiative by the state arm of National Health Mission and Department of Health and Family welfare- Rajasthan.

The project has been implemented in 2 phases and involves arresting undernutrition in children under 5 years of age through the Community based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) model. POSHAN phase 1, in 2016, reached out to 2,34,404 children in 1574 villages, 41 blocks and involved over 2500 Government frontline workers while, phase 2, which has recently begun, will target 53 blocks and involve over 7000 Government front-line workers.

OUR REACH IN BARAN

Preventive model

We are present in 283 villages and reach out to 5,670 malnourished children and a population of 2,20,657 people.

Curative model (technical partners to the Government)

10,341 malnourished children, 3,750 villages and a population of 10 million