Intervention plans

One of the daycares in Marewad. Some of the mothers came to answer some questions that we had.

Beginning our second week of visiting the village Marewad, we have pieced together a full assessment and have begun planning our intervention for this community. We are focusing on the daycares. It has been an interesting experience full of many surprises learning about how daycare, education and family life is conducted in this village.

We had translators from the university with us to help facilitate communication with the teachers, children and mothers.

The first bits of information we uncovered were related to how the daycare was organized – how food was served, where it came from, how anthropometrics were measured and recorded, how children

Jaggery on the left, ground nuts on the right. These foods are offered to the children daily but will be prepared in various ways to give variety.

received immunizations and healthcare, and what types of lessons were taught. By the way…they have a lesson about electronics, but not about nutrition. Hm.

Food and funds are all provided by the government. Primary food items include ground nuts (looks like a peanut) and jaggery, which is a sweet, sugary thing that contains iron. The ground nuts are the source of protein. For children that are malnourished, they are given extra milk and receive an egg weekly. Just from collecting information from the daycare teachers, we estimated that about 10%, or 3 out of 30 children were malnourished. The children are served clean water while at the daycare. The government has supplied a water filter to treat the water. The government also has in place a method for delivering healthcare and immunizations to children. A healthcare worker visits the village on the 3rd Thursday of every month to deliver vaccinations to children that need them.

So…I’m going to say this – unfortunately, India has A LOT of things that could use fixing, not just nutrition related. You could look at pollution, sanitation, hygiene, in-breeding. Another challenge when it comes to nutrition is learning the cultural preferences. The food choices are steeped in tradition and won’t be changed easily. Typically, foods are very high in carbohydrates. Our job, since we are only here for such a short amount of time, is to do something that will be sustainable. So…what are we going to do? We are going to develop a nutrition lesson plan and create materials that can be used and incorporated into the curriculum. 🙂

So…stay tuned to see what comes next!

The kids follow us literally EVERYWHERE!! Even into our van!