TIKAPUR, JUNE 25
When health workers fanned out across Tikapur this past April-May to screen children's nutrition under the national nutrition assessment programme, what they found alarmed local officials enough to act immediately: 347 children under the age of five were found to be malnourished, with 75 in the high-risk category for acute malnutrition and 272 classified as moderately malnourished.
The findings, drawn from screening 1,864 children across the municipality, have pushed Tikapur Municipality to retrain its Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) and relaunch screening efforts on the ground.
"Tikapur Municipality has made improving children's nutritional status a priority. During the campaign, we tested 1,864 children," said Balbahadur Rawal, chief of the municipality's health branch. "Since we need to focus more closely on improving nutrition among malnourished children, we have begun giving our female health volunteers additional training."
According to Rawal, the municipality has been working to improve nutrition starting from pregnancy itself, through health institutions set up in each ward, and currently runs therapeutic feeding programmes for malnourished children at five institutions. Discussions with volunteers have centred on identifying, assessing and treating the nutritional status of children aged six to 59 months, with an emphasis on spreading awareness at the community level and increasing the use of vitamin A supplements for children.
"Volunteers help spread knowledge from pregnancy onward, support behaviour change, and improve access to services in the community. They are helping reduce malnutrition and improve health," Rawal said. "But improving the nutrition of mothers and children isn't the responsibility of volunteers, health workers or the government alone, families themselves need to take ownership of it."
The women doing the legwork
For Chandradevi Chaudhary, an FCHV in Tikapur-5, the work begins the moment she learns a woman in her area is pregnant. "From the time we learn a woman is pregnant, we start giving information about diet, lifestyle, and the importance of regular check-ups," she said. "But even though we work day and night, when families don't take responsibility, the nutritional status of children under five doesn't improve the way it should."
In Sitapur, Ward No. 2, volunteer Saraswati Chaudhary goes door to door spreading awareness about nutrition, prenatal care and check-ups. "We go directly to homes to inform pregnant women and their families about nutrition," she said. "We advise them to eat nutritious foods available around their own homes."
In Ward No. 3, volunteer Chandra Chaudhary said FCHVs also help administer vitamin A doses, deworming medicine and other nutrition programmes, besides educating families on healthy habits and nutritious diets. "We know the economic and family situation of everyone in our community," she said. "When it comes to improving nutrition, the family has to be the one to take the lead."
In Tikapur-4, volunteer Durga Parajuli said she works with mothers from pregnancy until their children turn two, advising on care and nutrition for both. "We encourage families to use the nutritious foods that are locally available," she said. "We also provide guidance on breastfeeding, complementary feeding and immunisation."
Ghee and eggs for new mothers
To help families shoulder this responsibility, the municipality has started distributing nutrition supplies to new mothers. In Tikapur-4 alone, 50 postpartum women have each received half a kilogram of ghee and a crate of eggs, said ward chairperson Lalbir Chaudhary.
It is a small gesture against a stubborn problem, but for the volunteers walking from door to door, and the mothers they counsel along the way, it is one more reason for families in Tikapur to believe that a child's nutrition can still be turned around.
