Nutrition and access to healthy food are the rights of all sections of society, however, the needs of the urban poor are complex & multifaceted. The nutritional status of urban slum populations is worse than the rural population. SHODH’s nutrition project is working with households from urban slums & those having young children to improve quality of local diets and improve eating & feeding practices by increasing awareness and including low cost, high nutrition & impact solutions as part of the strategy. 

At the same time SHODH is also working on the revival of climate smart crops and linking urban poor to these foods through the nutrition intervention.

Regular health camps for children, breastfeeding awareness, WASH awareness are some of the other activities that are regularly conducted as part of the intervention. 

Through Ghar Ghar Poshan, SHODH has been working on the issue of addressing nutritional deficiencies in young children.  As the mothers are being trained on using these ingredients, with a specific focus on millet many of them have now started to use these at home for their families and children.

One such case is of Ms. Sheetal who used Bajra (Pearl millet) and Moringa leaves in her child’s diet to address the issue of iron deficiency and underweight. In three months of using these ingredients regularly as part of her 4 year old child’s diet, the iron levels moved from 5.5 g/dl to 11 g/dl and weight has increased by 5 Kgs. 

A recent study on #MILLET MEAL by ICRISAT, published in December 2019 also states that Physical growth (height and weight) of adolescent children will be 50% more if they are given millet-based meals when compared to the growth recorded in children fed with fortified rice.

Currently we are working with around 100 women, belonging to 100 households and impacting over 500 people in the community. We are continuing to teach them new recepies during the COVID19 lockdown as well, because of the high demand from the community women. Now they are empowered with close to 100 new recepies, which will help them curate meals as per the need and nutrition of the family.