West Bengali mothers participating in nutrition child care session to learn PD practices to feed their children.

Materials

The following powerpoint presentation contains further information on the PD approach in West Bengal The Positive Deviance Approach by ICDS Murshidabad

Contacts

Piyali Mustaphi
Unicef Child Development and Nutrition Project Officer
UNICEF
Email: pmustaphi@unicef.org

Nutrition and Child Care Project (NCCP) in West Bengal, India

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is a national program committed to the welfare of pregnant/ lactating women and children under six years old in India. In the state of West Bengal, 850 Anganwadi centers in four districts have been using the Positive Deviance (PD) approach to improve the nutritional status of children under three years of age. Positive Deviance has allowed the community to discover unusual yet successful strategies and practices among caregivers that help some children to stay healthy and grow well; without access to special resources.

By utilizing Positive Deviance, ICDS and their community partners have been able to reduce malnutrition substantially and promote good care practices. In Murshidabad district for example, the number of malnourished children decreased by 41.3% and the number of children being weighed regularly increased from 53% to 92% (). Equally important this bottom-up approach has mobilized the community resulting in individual and social change at all levels.

Funded by UNICEF, under the leadership of the Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare and The Panchayat, ICDS has undertaken pilots projects in the use of the PD approach in Nutrition and Child Care Program (NCCP) in 4 districts : Murshidabad, 24 Parganas, Daksin Dinashpur and Purulia, in collaboration with local NGOs (CINI, ASHA and SPCO). The pilot phase from 2001 to 2004, involved thousand of children under 3 years of age, their families and their communities. The project was implemented in the context of donated food subsidies to elligible families with children under 3 years of age. The PD informed project enabled families to break the dependence on donated food, by

1. Identifying cheap, locally available nutritious food which some families (PD) fed their healthy children as well as PD caring health-seeking and hygiene practices

2. Bringing these food to the daily NCC session to prepare

3. Feed their malnourished children a high calorie energy dense extra meal.

Community mobilization has resulted in the following outcomes:

• Overwhelming positive response from communities in organizing and participating in various collective and creative activities at village level
• Better relations and cooperation between diverse communities at village level (Muslim & Hindus)
• Emergence of new leaders and activists at the grassroots level
• Empowerment of disaffranchised groups: emergence of committed women's groups, including adolescent girls, to improve childcare practices
• At ICDS level, healthy competition between AWWs, increased staff interest, participation and dedication via new monitoring tools and skills, also better accountability to communities.

Due to the success of the pilot project, not only in significantly reducing malnutrition but in strengthening linkages between key stakeholders, (the community, ICDS, the Panchayat and MOH) ICDS and the government of West Bengal plan to apply the PD/NCCP to the most vulnerable communities throughout the state. In addition, there are plans to use the PD process activities (village mapping, FGD, village run GMP and identification of locally available cheap nutrious food to mobilize communities around child nutrition and development issues and reinforce linkages between the key partners (Panchayat, ICDS and MOH) at all levels.

Based on recent reports, the programme has now expanded to over a thousand villages, covering more than 1,22,000 children. Read More