NE HEALTH BUREAU
NEW DELHI, MAR 2
Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani on Thursday launched a Cartoon Coalition to promote balanced nutrition, a key target under the POSHAN scheme, and released a ‘Poshan Utsav Book’ along with Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
According to the ministry, the move is expected to revolutionise nutrition awareness by engaging children through captivating storytelling through their favourite cartoon characters and other material and drive positive behavioural change in communities across the nation for desired nutritional outcomes.
- India serves up ancient wisdom on nutrition, spiced with stories around favourite cartoon characters, as a recipe to fight malnutrition among children
- Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), lauds the “Poshan Utsav Book”
- The operationalisation of Poshan Tracker, the numbers for SAM & MAM children have shown significant decline as compared to the data reported under NFHS-5 survey: Smriti Irani
- The event also sees the launch of the Cartoon Coalition, a team of India’s most beloved cartoon characters, including Chacha Chaudhary, Suppandi, Shambhu, and even Elmo!
The book has been curated by the Deendayal Research Institute (DRI). The book seeks to revive ancient nutrition traditions, facilitating knowledge exchange and intergenerational learning. It also serves as a comprehensive repository for appreciation of the rich culinary heritage and nutritional diversity of the country.
The Cartoon Coalition is envisaged to support and contribute towards the cause of Poshan through collaboration with MWCD. This Coalition is born out of a collaboration between renowned cartoon entities in India to harness the power of popular cartoon characters to convey essential messages on nutrition in an entertaining and relatable manner for positive behaviour change among children.
Addressing the gathering, Bill Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation remarked, “The Poshan Utsav book is a great example of incorporating local context and cultural practices to promote nutritional foods across India’s diverse communities.” He further added, “When you improve the life of a woman, there’s a ripple effect: You improve her community and her country. In India, we’ve seen that this kind of progress can be lasting and can be achieved on a massive scale.”
In her keynote address, while expressing appreciation for the efforts made by BMGF in the nutrition and gender space, Minister of Women and Child Development and Minority Affairs, stated that when the Prime Minister announced the Poshan Abhiyaan in 2018, it marked a historic moment for the country. For the first time, 18 ministries across the Government of India came together under the national flagship program called Poshan Abhiyaan. She emphasized that every anganwadi is digitally enabled so that service delivery to the last mile can be tracked. She also stated that handheld devices now are available to Anganwadi Centres across the country. Every month Anganwadi didis measure 75 million children under the age of 6 years as per WHO standards.
Further, she mentioned that after the operationalisation of Poshan Tracker, the numbers for SAM & MAM children have shown significant decline as compared to the data reported under NFHS-5 survey. She highlighted that the cartoon coalition launched was aimed as a significant step towards bringing about behavioural change in children for healthy lifestyle.
The presence of the popular cartoon characters like Chacha Chaudhary, Suppandi, Shambhu, Elmo brought the coalition to life and added special appeal to the occasion.
efforts to combat malnutrition and foster healthier lifestyles among children. It was a significant step towards the goal of Suposhit Bharat.
