Department of Women and Child Development (WCD), on Thursday, launched the social and behavior change strategy to fight a critical battle against under-nutrition in the state. The intention is to change the way people think about nutrition of mother and child so that National Nutrition Mission (NNM) can achieve its target trough public participation in tackling the challenge of fighting under-nutrition. The NNM was launched countrywide by PM Narendra Modi at Jhunjhunu on March 8.
“Under-nutrition among pregnant and lactating women is a concern,” WCD minister Anita Bhadel said. “Rajasthan has strengthened its commitment to fight the problem by adopting social and behavior change as important means.
As getting rid of inhibiting social norms to create a sensitive family and society is one of the integral parts of the strategy.” she added.
Yaduvendra Mathur, additional secretary, NITI Aayog said that the initiative by Rajasthan government to focus on social and behavior change for achieving better standards of mother and child nutrition is appreciable and this idea aligns with the priorities set out in NNM.
It is worth mentioning that Rajasthan is the only state where a community based programme for the management of acute malnutrition has already been completed successfully by the state health department. Sharing his experience, mission director NHM, Naveen Jain said, “Parents don’t consider under-nutrition as a major problem. We need to educate not only mothers, but also fathers to bring improvements in nutrition pattern.”
Principal secretary of WCD department Roli Singh said that the strategy puts pregnant and lactating women at the center of all implementation processes.
“PM’s vision is to roll out the NNM as Jan Andolan. Change in mentality towards pregnant and lactating mothers’ food will be a step forward in line with the PM’s vision,”said Priyamvada Singh, policy and outreach adviser, RajPusht.
