Frontline Health Workers’ Key Role in Improving Nutrition

This post originally appeared in the Frontline Health Workers Coalition Blog.

Sunita Kumari was struggling to get her message across. Working as an auxiliary nurse midwife in Gumla District, Jharkhand, India, she kept trying to mobilize the women of Toto, a village of 941 houses, to participate in Village Health and Nutrition Days. Despite her best efforts, she had little success.

Complicating matters, influential village elders failed to see the point: “We never went to the health subcenter and our children were not vaccinated,” they would tell Sunita, “but still they are healthy and fine.”

Sunita knew that Village Health and Nutrition Days offered more than vaccinations. But low attendance meant that few women and children were receiving health and nutrition services, and the number of malnourished children was high. [...]