The three-year programme ‘YES To POSHAN’ will be executed across five villages in Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh under P&G Health’s SEHAT CSR initiative
Procter & Gamble Health announced a three-year collaboration with Tata Trusts for ‘YES To POSHAN’ a new programme, that aims to advance the nutritional status of women and children in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, under its flagship corporate social responsibility initiative SEHAT (Health).
The programme will be executed across five villages in the Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh. Interventions will include surveys, growth monitoring and a holistic behaviour change campaign to encourage the inclusion of various food groups in their diet and promote the cultivation of backyard fruits and vegetables. These activities will take place in the form of interpersonal or one-to-one interactions, small group and community conversations, and also encourage male participation. The programme will also facilitate the capacity building of Anganwadi workers and POSHAN Sakhis, so they can conduct home visits and community-level meetings in their village. Further, the POSHAN Sakhis will support frontline workers in identifying children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) to ensure timely referral to malnutrition treatment centres.
Milind Thatte, MD, Procter & Gamble Health said, “SEHAT, our CSR initiative is a testament to our commitment to make a sustainable and significant difference to public health in India in collaboration with like-minded partners. We are delighted to partner with Tata Trusts for ‘YES TO POSHAN’ – a grass root level behaviour change programme – which aims to complement the government’s efforts by promoting diet diversity and addressing the challenges of limited or age-inappropriate diet amongst Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLW) and children < 2 years.”
Dr Rajan Sankar, Senior Advisor – Nutrition, Tata Trusts commented, “Under ‘Yes to POSHAN’ with P&G Health, we will endeavour to sustainably increase diet diversity. These will be run through community involvement and convergence with local government schemes and self-help groups to maximise the impact on-ground. Our team will support the implementation of the project in Andhra Pradesh and provide technical nutrition-specific oversight, thus driving empowerment, rural development to elevate the nutritional status of women and children in the local community.”