Meet The Campaigners Fighting Against Child Malnutrition And Hunger In Delhi

A Campaign against Hunger & Malnutrition

The Freedom from Malnutrition Campaign which is now the Campaign against Hunger and Malnutrition was launched on 14.08.2018 to sensitize and create awareness in the community, civil society organisations, social activists, Members of Legislative Assemblies and Members of Parliaments to make Delhi malnourished free.

What Problem Is The Campaign Trying To Address?

Malnutrition has been widely acknowledged as one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality among children in the early years of childhood. The deaths of three girls in the National Capital Territory of Delhi due to starvation or malnutrition evidently shows how deep the problem is and narrow the understanding is to deal with the issue.

What Is The Campaign Trying To Achieve?

The Campaign against Hunger and Malnutrition is comprised of youth, civil society organisations, social activists who are committed to ending malnutrition in the city. The objectives are:

1. Community sensitisation and awareness to create mass movement on the issue of malnutrition.
2. Campaigning to reaching out to political representatives which include Members of Parliaments and MLAs for effective implementation of nutrition schemes, monitoring and evaluation, increasing budgets for nutrition programmes.
3. Sending Petitions to Government of Delhi – My Appeal to CM of Delhi to seek government’s action on ‘Six-Demands’.

The Demands Are:

1. That there must be a State Plan of Action on Malnutrition with a Budget for its implementation.
2. There must be an addition of Egg, Banana and Milk in school mid-day meal and in supplementary nutrition at ICDS centres.
3. Revising the existing menu in Mid-Day Meal till class 8^th and extension of Mid-Day Meal Programme for children studying in class 9th-12th in government schools.
4. The food distribution system in schools and ICDS Centres in Delhi must get de-centralised by establishing ‘community kitchens’.
5. Constitution of State Food Commission in Delhi as per section 16 of the National Food Security Act, 2013 which is pending since many years.
6. Social Auditing of nutrition programmes on a periodic basis to ensure the quality of meals being served to children in Delhi.

What Has Been Done So Far?

• The campaign reached out to more than 70,000 people in Delhi by organising Poshan Sabha’s which have garnered the support of around 50,000 people (signed offline petition) and 3865 people (signed the online petition) on Org: No child should die of malnutrition.
• On 29.08.2019 (Thursday), the four campaign volunteers Arvind Singh, Ravi Rai, Praveen Verma and Mahi Bora have submitted the Offline Petitions to the Office of Honorable Chief Minister of Delhi at Delhi Secretariat. Mr. Prashant Kumar the Assistant Personal Secretary to CM Office received the Petition. The campaigners talked in detail to get an appointment since,there was no response to the previous letter submitted on 20.06.2019 to the office of the CM at his residence at 6 Flag Staff Road, Civil Lines, New Delhi.
• Previously a letter was also submitted to the Office of Deputy Chief Minister and the WCD Minister Shri Manish Sisodia on 09.03.2019 for seeking his time on the given subject. However, no response was received.
• Met the MLAs, MPs in Delhi for seeking their support to address the problem of malnutrition collectively.

*Feature Image only for representational purposes.