Happy Republic Day !

Wishing Everyone A Very Happy 71st Republic Day!

NUTRITION AT SCHOOL

Nutrition is the intake of food, considered in relation to the body's dietary needs and a

balanced diet, together with physical activity, is a cornerstone of good health. The

international organisations are increasingly focusing their efforts on nutrition as they

underscore the importance of it, not only on at the individual level but as an asset for the

sustainable development of a country . As Ban Ki Moon stated: “Nutrition  is both a maker and a marker of development. Improved nutrition is the platform for progress in health,education, employment, empowerment of women and the reduction of poverty and inequality, and can lay the foundation for peaceful, secure and stable societies”. 

Nutrition is therefore a very complex and multifaceted issue as it encompasses a broad range of topics and, taken form a Sustainable Development Goals perspective, can be taken as the focal point from which one can address every one of those. Unfortunately a big share of the world population faces issues related to malnutrition, this being defined by the WHO as the condition related to deficiencies, excesses, or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients. Whilst many western countries are facing a growing burden of Obesity and overweight individuals, the other side of the coin is represented by those developing countries affected by undernutrition and micronutrient-related malnutrition, with 90 per cent of the developing world’s chronically undernourished (stunted) children living in Asia and Africa. 

Under nutrition is defined as the outcome of insufficient food intake and repeated infectious diseases. It includes being underweight for one’s age, too short for one’s age (stunted), dangerously thin for one’s height (wasted) and deficient in vitamins and minerals (micronutrient malnutrition). According to Unicef, more than one third of the world’s children who are wasted live in India, with the rural communities having the highest rates of undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. Other nutrition issues faced by many underprivileged communities is Iron-deficiency-Anaemia (IDA), for which India earned by far the world sad record, and Protein Energy Malnutrition (PEM). The Indian government recognizes the importance of an adequate nutrition in order to end the vicious circle of poverty and its paramountcy for development, as noted in the national nutrition policy. The same document underlines the importance of nutrition education and the fact that schools are an ideal setting for that. Reason why the Mid-may meal scheme is been designed. Unfortunately, as noted in the previous article the shortcomings about the implementation of the programme are manifest and if we take them from a “nutritional” angle we notice that the programme failed to provide nutritious food as per programme guidelines.Therefore the question is: 

What can be done to remedy to these

shortcomings? The ministry of Human Resource Development highlights the importance of community participation for the successful implementation of the scheme, in order to

ensure an effective monitoring at the local level and underlining the importance of the

participation of NGOs which work at a grassroots level, having a hands-on approach to

such issues and dealing directly with the problems faced by the communities, thus creating a dialogue between those and the government. 

Therefore NGOs such as Heeals can be paramount for the remedying of the government shortcomings regarding the implementation of programmes such as the MDM scheme; tackling issues such as Infrastructure implementation, nutrition education and nutritional balanced meal provision. It is paramount to empower voiceless and unprivileged communities in order to buttress their rights as the issues that their facing are not an accident or a natural outcome of their actions, but they are socio-economical phenomena engendered by asymmetrical power relations and lack of access to the most basic resources and agency. 

As demonstrated by Amartya Sen, hunger and food insecurity are not related to food availability but to the lack of access to it on the part of certain individuals, and if we are to support the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, we have to support and empower those people whom are more in need, making their voices audible as well as endorsing a pragmatic solidarity” approach. As Paul Farmer stated, the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong in the world.

-        By -Andrea Angeli

WASH Intern Coordinator

Source

1 Global Panel on Agriculture and Food systems fo Nutrition; http://glopan.org/sites/default/files/

SDGPolicyBrief.pdf

2http://ucx3x320eshgjxppibt1rqg0.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/SUNMovement-

Strategy-and-Roadmap-Ban-Ki-moon-message.pdf

3 UNSCN; http://glopan.org/sites/default/files/Downloads/SDGPolicyBriefSummary.pdf

4 WHO; https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malnutrition

5 UNICEF; https://unicef.in/Story/1124/Nutrition

6 UNICEF; https://www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/2006n4/undernutritiondefinition.html

7 UNICEF; https://unicef.in/Story/1124/Nutrition

8 WHO; http://www.who-seajph.org/article.asp?

issn=2224-3151;year=2018;volume=7;issue=1;spage=18;epage=23;aulast=Rai ; https://

www.hospitalmanagement.net/comment/anemia-prevalence-nears-40-india/; https://

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/51-of-indian-women-aged-15-49-anaemic-most-in-world-study/

articleshow/61538152.cms

9https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/nnp_0.pdf

10 see “Food and Hygiene” article.

11Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development; https://

elementaryeducation.tripura.gov.in/mid-day-meal; see “Food Hygiene” article.

12 Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of School

Education and Literacy; http://mdm.nic.in/mdm_website/Files/Guidelines/

3.MDM1%2021.09.2010.pdf

13 Amartya Sen, “Poverty and famines”, 1981, Oxford India Paperbacks

14ICESCR

15 For the concept of “pragmatic

WASH & Food Hygiene Workshop !

We Organised Water Sanitation Hygiene & Food Hygiene Workshop In Schools . Distributed WASH Booklets ,Soaps ,Posters & WASH Supplies 

Interested Candidate Looking For Internship /Volunteering/Volunteer travel program At HEEALS Please Contact Us At : communications@heeals.org

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WASHBooklet Distributed In Schools

SAFE FOOD FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

The importance of food hygiene for community development The quality of our life is very much determined by the quality of the food that we eat. Food is paramount for human health and well-being as it’s mentioned in the Universal declaration of human rights in the article 25, together with clothing, housing and health care. Notwithstanding the objectives and rhetorical statements periodically put forth by  governments and international organizations, the current trends related to hunger and malnutrition are dire, with an estimated 821 million undernourished people in 2017 (compared to 784 million in 2015) one third of which live in South Asia. Children are  especially vulnerable to malnutrition as this hampers their full development and their ability to learn and lead a healthy and fulfilling life. 

Currently an estimated 149 million children are stunted worldwide with India having one of the world’s highest children under nutrition rates.  According to the UN 4 out of 10 children in India are not meeting their full human potential because of chronic under nutrition or stunting, leading to diminished learning capacities, poor school performance and increased risks of chronic diseases. As it’s shown by  researches promoted by the WHO, unsafe food creates a vicious circle of disease and malnutrition particularly among the most vulnerable individuals such as children. 

For these reasons the Indian Government decided to launch the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education in 1995, also known as Mid-Day Meal Scheme its stated goals being: enhancing enrollment, retention and attendance and simultaneously improving nutritional levels among children. Unfortunately some surveys and researches showed the gap between the stated goals of the programme and its actual implementation, the shortcomings being: lack of proper infrastructure for the processing, handling and provision of food; the poor nutritional value of the food provided; the lack of implementation in certain areas at all; lack of funds for the implementation of the programme and, as a result, the failure to meet the predetermined goals. Food hygiene is therefore a paramount issue to be addressed in order to prevent food borne diseases and malnutrition, and this has to be tackled both on the educational side (providing knowledge about the measures to take in order to have safe food) and the physical side (providing access to the necessary tools and infrastructure necessary to have safe food). The WHO defines food hygiene as the conditions and measures necessary to ensure the safety of food from production to consumption and identified five key areas related to the implementation of 

The measures necessary to guarantee food hygiene. These issues needs to be addressed  mainly in the rural areas where there’s a lack of awareness and infrastructure about the measures to take in order to prevent food borne diseases and where communities are most vulnerable to problems such as lack of access to services. FAO recognizes that schools are an ideal setting to support nutrition and development as children are at an age where food and health habits are being formed, and they can also influence families and be a channel for wider community participation, therefore creating benefits that extend beyond the classroom to households and communities. Given the shortcomings proved by the governmental program about school meals, the role of NGOs such as HEEALS are fundamental in order to tackle the aforementioned issues, providing educational and physical tools, and promoting development and health through a direct dialogue with the communities themselves. Only through a direct dialogue the empowerment of such communities can be obtained, by listening to the voices of the people on a grassroots level and giving them the freedom to choose. As shown by Amartya Sen freedom is both a mean and an end to development and is necessary to avoid the vicious circle of poverty.

-        - Andrea

Source 

www.un.org › universal-declaration-human-rights 1 https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/ 2 ibid. 3 https://in.one.un.org/un-priority-areas-in-india/nutrition-and-food-security/ 4 https://www.who.int/health-topics/food-safety/ 5https://mhrd.gov.in/mid-day-meal 6https://scroll.in/latest/935227/;https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2019/09/07/UP-govt-was-aware-7ofsevere-shortcomings-of-mid-day-meal-scheme.html;https://indianexpress.com/article/india/ over-900-children-reported-ill-in-last-three-years-after-consuming-mid-day-meals-hrd-ministry- 5828876/;https://indianexpress.com/article/india/priyanka-gandhi-uttar-pradesh-governmentschool-mid-day-meal-6161112/;https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/health/mid-day-mealhas-failed-to-attract-children-to-government-schools-says-cag-audit-52267

https://www.who.int/foodsafety/areas_work/food-hygiene/5keys/en/ 8http://www.fao.org/school-food/overview/en/ 9A. Sen, “Development as freedom”, 1999 10

We welcome our new intern

We welcome our new interns From Italy 

He Is Working On Water Sanitation & Hygiene Program.

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HEEALS Foundation Day Celebrated With Children

Today We Celebrate HEEALS Foundation #Day! 4th January

HEEALS Is An Acronym Denoting Our Commitment To Committing Human And Technical Resource To Achieve Health Education Environment and Livelihood Society for all. 

We Give Thanks To Our Team Member, Partner, Interns,Volunteer And All Those Who Are Continuously Striving Together To Achieve Our Mission, Vision And Goals & Objective .We Give Thanks To Everyone Who Tirelessly & Generously Giving Their Service To The People In Need. And We Give Thanks For All Those Who Will Come And Join Today ,Tomorrow & In Future Years To Be Good Help To Those In Need.
Thanks
HEEALS

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Happy New Year 2020 To Everyone !

We Wish Everyone A Very Happy New Year 2020 .

May New Year Be Filled With Lots Of Love,Peace ,Happiness ,Good Health ,Wealth ,Prosperity & Joy !

From HEEALS Team