A welfare project entitled “Improving Maternal and Child Nutrition (IMCN)” launched in
August, 2011 runs smoothly creating positive impacts to the undernourished mothers and
children in the district.
The goal of the IMCN intervention is to reduce prevalence of under nutrition among
women and children to break the intergenerational cycle of under nutrition and to focus
on reaching the most vulnerable population groups during the most critical period of their
life.
To implement a combined penetrative and creative approach in the communities with
high prevalence of acute and chronic under nutrition among the children under 5 in
particular is another goal of the IMCN.
The specific objective of the IMCN approach is to treat and manage moderately, acutely
under nutrition children below 5 and pregnant and lactating women through targeted
supplementary feeding to recover effectively from moderate acute malnutrition.
To improving knowledge, behavior and practice around health, hygiene, and nutrition
to education and to do counseling and social awareness campaigning are the parts of its
preventive approach.
Besides, to improve access to health services and household food and nutrition security
through linking with the existing Government of Bangladesh (GoB) non-government
organisation (NGO) services and programme in the targeted areas is another part of the
approach.
The project designed for two years is being implemented at 43 unions of four upazilasPalashbari, Gobindaganj, Saghata and Fulchhari of the district in cooperation with World
Food Programme (WFP) and GoB while Eco Social Development Organisation (ESDO),
a reputed NGO, is assisting them as a cooperating partner, said Mamunur Rashid,
assistant programme officer of WFP’s sub office, Rangpur.
Under this project, a total of 22,609 mothers and 86,908 children have been brought till
31 July, 2013 and they are being provided fortified blended food and vegetable oil from
the project, said Rezanur Rahman, monitoring and evaluation officer of ESDO-IMCN
programme.
Each of the malnourished pregnant and lactating mothers is getting 225 gram of fortified
blended food and 20 gram of vegetable oil and the children each are being provided 200
gram of fortified blended food per day, he also said.
Till July 31, a total of 1,768 tonnes of food were distributed to the selected children and
as many as 601 tonnes of food and 38 tonnes of oil to the mothers, said Dr. Muhammad
Shahid Uz Zaman, executive director of ESDO.
Tahomina Begum, a beneficiary of Bharatkhali village under Saghata upazila, expressed
her gratefulness to the ESDO, WFP and GoB for providing her with fortified blended
food and vegetable oil like other selected mothers to remove their malnutrition problem.
She also requested the authorities concerned to extend the duration of the project and to
bring other 3 upazilas in the district under the project in near future to make a healthy
nation.
When contacted, deputy commissioner Dr. Quazi Anwarul Haque expressed his
satisfaction over the project and said it had also created working opportunity to 568
unemployed youths side by side with removing malnutrition problem to pregnant and
lactating mothers including children of the district.
Many high officials including Japanese high commissioner, ERD secretary, foreign
delegates and Rangpur divisional commissioner had already visited the project command
areas separately a few months back, he also said. -BSS, Gaibandha
