Class 11 students participate in workshop on Malnourishment of children

A workshop was conducted by the Department of Education in collaboration with the Ladli Foundation at the Thyagaraj Stadium on 3 May, 2023. The dignitaries present included Himanshu Gupta, Director of DOE, DDE Kailash Jain, Divendra Gupta, CEO of Ladli Foundation and the principals of a number of government and private schools.

The workshop was aimed to highlight the work and impact of the social internship programme which is said to be the largest voluntary awareness and action programme. It was mentioned that the aim of this programme was to provide adequate nutrition to the children studying in government schools.

During the workshop it was discussed that government school children were smaller built, shorter in height and less healthy in comparison to their peers and tend to faint during morning assemblies. During the presentation the resource person, Ms Divya explained the significance of this programme. She compared physical health with cognitive health as well as holistic development. In addition, statistical data was also shared with the audience through which she inferred and elaborated that a mass BMI check of 18 lakh students revealed that around 4 lakh 33 thousand students were malnourished or undernourished! She explained that this was the prime reason for introducing this programme.

The programme includes 700 schools with an overwhelming majority of 80% government schools, with over 45 thousand children. The presentation further elaborated on the interventions for malnutrition amongst children studying in DOE schools and how to overcome this problem.

The origin of the social internship programme was a pilot project by a government school in Surajmal Vihar. In this plan, the childrens BMI was calculated and monitored with the purpose of identifying children who were affected by malnutrition. Nutrition plans were set as well as regular counseling with the parents was soon established as a norm. A new break known as the mini snack break of about 10 minutes, was implemented. ( A fruit break in the same spirit has been implemented at our School.) During this break the children are asked to carry a certain healthy snack according to already detailed, explained weekly diet planners, in an attempt to provide sufficient nutrition to the children.

The Foundation has further plans of reviewing mid-day meals and adding millets to them. The Foundation has also made donations, held interventions and prepared circulars regarding the urgency to eradicate malnutrition and what steps can be taken to do so. Joining hands with the United Nations and World Health Organization, it is the biggest action research programme in the world.

Schools were asked to hold regular medical checkups. Regular monitoring is being done by the DOE officials during school visits. Volunteers of the Ladli Foundation are working with the nodal in charge. The Foundation has also introduced a summer internship programme to raise awareness regarding malnutrition. Workshops have been organised by the Foundation in over 209 schools. In an attempt to educate parents about malnutrition and it effects, the Ladli Foundation organised a mega camp for parent counselling on 6th May 2023. The main focus of the Foundation is children who are malnourished or are in the red zone. It was observed that that these steps have helped in strengthening the nutritive requirement of students, facilitating proper growth, increasing their focus and reducing absenteeism. The Foundation emphasised that they will be working towards making society a better place. Some of their future plans include introducing haemoglobin tests and reviewing menus and recipes of mid day meals.

S. Elakkiya, Pavani Khanna, Unnati Mishra, Dhruv Sacheti and Diya Mishra of class XI attended the work shop representing The Indian School along with their teacher Ms Suman Aswal. It was indeed a great feeling to be part of a new movement to eliminate malnutrition from our country.