By Neelam | Senior Nurse Health Project
Hello Everyone,
I am Neelam the senior project nurse on the health project.
I hope you are all well.
Firstly, may I draw your kind attention to our new website address for the Trust
Please take a look for all the latest project news.
Here in Bihar its super-hot, one of the hottest summers ever and the team and I have been working hard treating sunstroke and making sure everybody is properly hydrated. Because one of the most pressing health needs is clean water. along with nutritious food we will be hopefully be launching a new micro project for much needed deep bore water hand pumps in the villages so please look out for that.
How bad really is the problem of malnutrition in Bihar?
Eighty-seven per cent of the rural population and 61% of urban residents in Bihar had calorie deficiency during 2009-10, as per reports of National Sample Survey Office. In fact, Bihar ranked 74th (alarming zone) in the global hunger index of 88 countries, according to a Survey of India State Hunger Index 2015. In the same survey, Jharkhand ranked 76th, Odisha 67th and UP 61st, all in the alarming zone.
Discussing food security issues facing the country, development economist Jean Dreze on Thursday called Bihar the hunger capital with one of the highest child malnutrition rates in the world. "The living condition of people in some of the Bihar villages is grimmer and horrifying than at most places in the world. In fact, in terms of scheme implementation, Bihar is the capital of corruption and exploitation in the world," said Dreze, adding that only some progress took place in the last few years.
With so much scale of problem it is difficult to know what to do, it is overwhelming. The meal scheme we run is not free food donated randomly by strangers it is part of our overall health care programmes and the community give what they can, perhaps some wood for the fire and they make the stove from mud and cook the meal themselves, it is a community thing.
You can’t stop all the hunger in Bihar but by donating to this project you can ensure that all the children in these desperately poor villages receive the nutrition they need to grow and develop.
As one mum told us,
“We enjoy the cooking all together for our children, this meal makes all the difference to their health, thank you so much for helping us in this way”
Neelam
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