The severely under nourished children i.e. those children who fall in the red zone of the growth monitoring chart are linked to the supplementary nutrition programme. This programme comprises providing two meals or half the calories needed in a day. Currently, these meals are supported through the Tata Trusts supported health initiative. The nutritious meals are prepared by Zaika-e- Nizamuddin, a mother’s group on nutrition created to produce low-cost nutritious snacks for children. We have begun the process to link these children to the Government’s supplementary nutrition scheme while monitoring and strengthening their programme. This is important as throughout childhood, good nutrition continues to play an important role in keeping children strong, healthy and free of disease. In order to ensure this, mothers and caregivers are also counselled on healthy child feeding practices through regular meeting with mothers. They are also usually linked to the parenting programme. One of the parts of nutritional counselling is a demonstration of the foods prepared by Zaika-e-Nizamuddin.

This component began in 2015; so far a total of more than 100 children are linked with this programme and about 70 children have attained normal nutritional status. Throughout childhood, good nutrition continues to play an important role in keeping children strong, healthy and free of disease.