Page 77 - Winning The Nutrition Battle

Befriending an Influencer A New Twist to an Old Game

Naman Pant, Prerak, Madhya Pradesh Nida Fatima, Prerak, Uttar Pradesh

During our meetings with frontline workers, one of Uttar Pradesh is a very conservative heartland of India.
the constant problems they would flag is that villagers I was assigned to Lakhimpur Kheri, which is the largest
don’t want to listen to them and follow the government district in the state and borders Nepal. It is considered
program on nutrition. So, initially I felt maybe they were a backward district because of the state of deprivation
just not able to present their ideas convincingly and lack of progress on many parameters.
to villagers.
One of the issues we encountered was keeping young
So, I decided to spend some time interacting with girls engaged in conversation about health, nutrition
villagers and discovered that the only person they and personal hygiene. Often it was a monologue
listened to was their community leader -- this could be delivered by a frontline worker and typically retention
the sarpanch, or their caste leader. For them, his word was low.
was the last word.
So, I devised a snakes and ladders game, in which
Mostly, these leaders don’t see much value in the right answers to questions would help you raise
interacting with outsiders. I started by befriending the score by using a ladder to climb up, and a wrong
them and then I would get all the nutrition-linked data answer would send you sliding down a snake on the
and findings translated into the local language and board game.
share the stories with them. Slowly, they started to
understand why mother’s milk is best for a child until It was incredibly popular because suddenly girls
six months, or that anemia in mothers can lead to wanted to win and participate and they started paying
problems in a newborn. attention to what they were taught and asked for
more information.
To involve them I started calling them Poshan Saathis,
giving them a role in delivering the Poshan Abhiyan.
For those who were able to influence change, I would
often get the District Collector to send them a note
recognising their efforts.

In a village, such recognition goes a long way and it
keeps them motivated in their efforts to make
change happen.

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