The Boy who lived through Malnourishment!

A young boy’s fight to conquer malnutrition.

This is a story of a little boy who is on the verge of beating his archenemy, Malnutrition.

Jabeesh is his name. Jabeesh was underweight at birth, but due to the lack of awareness and no information, his parents were unaware of this factor. The fact of his illness was identified much later, at the age of 3. Through the intervention of the Hand in Hand (HIH) India health team, the parents were educated about Jabeesh's malnourishment.

We at HIH India conduct numerous medical and pediatric camps for the rural communities to ensure that all get equal and accessible healthcare. All these camps are free of cost, and we at HIH India have mobilizers working in the area encouraging people to participate. One such Pediatric camp was organized in the Perinjambakkam village of Tamil Nadu (Jabeesh's town), funded by Wipro cares under their CSR program.

At all pediatric camps, children are screened for illnesses or anything that could have been overlooked by the parents. The issue might take a drastic turn if the parents are not aware and untreated, which is one of the main reasons to conduct the camps. The child's weight is also noted and compared with the average age versus weight scale. If the child is underweighted for their age, they are classified as malnourished and enrolled in treatment. In most scenarios, the parents are not aware of the child's condition and continue to feed them junk foods. There are no meal plans devised or followed; the child is fed an unbalanced diet in most scenarios. This was the case of Jabeesh as well.

In Jabeesh's case, the mother continued to feed him junk foods like chips and whatnot due to the lack of awareness. The child's stomach would get packed with just one packet of chips and refuse to eat anything else. The mother would also not force him to eat more as she believes that he was not hungry. Once a kid tastes junk food, they will not have an appetite for anything else. His parents also did not stop him and always bought him all the junk foods he requested.

The Road to Recovery

When the HIH India team screened Jabeesh and found him malnourished, they immediately conducted multiple other tests to ensure no underlying life-threatening issues. The mother and family members were counseled on methods to cure the illness and help the child overcome this. HIH India team had social mobilizers pay frequent visits to the family to follow up with the mother on the child's progress.

The team also educated the mother, helped her understand the severity of the situation, and helped her plan the meals accordingly. It was advised that the child be fed six times a day to catch up to his goal weight. The team planned all the meals, and the mother was asked to follow this to the T. Yes, we know what you are thinking; feeding six times a day while the mother had other members in the family to care for is a tedious job. Therefore an elaborate training was provided to the mother to ease the process and help her efficiently.

The family members were also counseled by the HIH India team and were requested to support and help Jabeesh grow out of malnourishment. The team also supplied deworming tablets for the child along with the nutritious food plan. The mother was advised to feed the child a variety of foods and not the same staple. All these processes and the child's meal plans were regularly followed by the mobilizers of the health team at HIH India.

The Final Leg of Journey!

All these efforts and continuous monitoring led the child towards his first month of recovery from malnourishment. Typically, a child's recovery process from malnourishment is monitored for three months by the HIH India team. As every month passes by, the child is considered to have achieved a new milestone. At the end of the third month, if the child shows drastic weight changes and has maintained the diet plan, he is given the pass certificate and is deemed to have won over his archenemy, malnourishment. During the three months recovery time, if the child falls back into the wagon, then the slate is wiped clean, and the treatment process is started all over again. The road to recovery needs to be paved again.

But this was not the case with Jabeesh; Jabeesh has completed his second month and is now. His weight and meal plans are regularly monitored by the team through frequent visits to the house. Under the supervision of the HIH India Health team, we currently have 36,791 children cared for under the nutrition program. This team has been crucial in helping 9,992 children recover from malnourishment. We have to date and conducted 8,492 medical camps in five different states: Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha. The HIH India Health team has also organized 49,276 awareness camps across the five states mentioned.

Hand in Hand India works across India in the area of Child Labour Elimination. In addition to our residential special training centres for child and bonded labourers in Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, we run 2 schools for first-generation learners in Kanchipuram. Through our initiatives, more than 3 lakh children have been mainstreamed into formal Government schools and have converted more than 1000 panchayats (groups of villages) into child-friendly ones. Read more about our work here.