Prime Minister Award for Project Sampoorna in Bongaigaon to Dr. MS Lakshmi Priya IAS.

PM AWARD FOR PROJECT SAMPOORNA, BONGAIGAON:

Bongaigaon district administration has own the PM award for excellence in public administration 2021 for the project SAMPOORNA, an initiative by Dr. M.S. Laskhmi Priya IAS, DC, Bongaigaon.

ABOUT PROJECT SAMPOORNA:

This project aims to target the Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM), it was launched to target the mother of SAM/MAM children with the tagline being ‘Empowered Mothers, Healthy Children’. It was based on the success of the community-based COVID-19 management model (project Mili-Juli)

The project has resulted in the reduction of malnutrition in children using near zero economic investment.

KEY FEATURES:

Bongaigaon district has 2,416 malnourished children, 246 cases of Sever Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and 2,170 instances of Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM)

Under this project, the mother of a healthy child of an Anganwadi center was paired with the target mother and they would be buddy mothers

They were usually neighbors and shared same socioeconomic backgrounds. Mothers are given a diet chart for daily food intake of their children and would have discussion on all Tuesdays at the Anganwadi centers.

100millilitres of milk and an egg on alternate days for the children for the first 3 month were provided so that their mothers could stabilize themselves in the newly found jobs

Children who had not improved were checked and treated by doctors under the RASHTRIYA SWATHYA KARYAKRAM(RBSK)

MALNUTRITION, PATRIARCHY:

Bongaigaon has 1,116 anganwadis with a total of 63,041 children below five. The massive exercise of plotting their weights and heights in world health organization growth charts revealed a total of 2,416 malnourished children.

The major obstacle of the project was patriarchy. Mothers had to be empowered financially for sustained results. Therefore, they were enrolled in Self Help Groups (SHG)under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).

By the end of 3months 74.3% of mothers were enrolled in SHGs; by the end of 6months, enrollment went up to 75.6% and by the end of the year, it was 90%.

IMPACT OF PROJECT SAMPOORNA:

By march 2021, 84.96% of SAM children and 97.3% MAM children were normal; and by September 2021 ,92.3% SAM and 98.9% MAM children were normal.

Project Sampoorna had prevented at least 1,200 children from becoming malnourished over the last year.

The National Nutrition Mission and state government recognized the project in the ‘innovation category’ for the year 2021.

 

Deborika Bhattacharjee,

Content Writer,

BONGAIGAON TIMES