Breastfeeding Awareness Program in partnership with MAMTA
IndiaCSR News Network
GURGAON: Nestlé India together with MAMTA Health Institute for Mother and Child, a national not for profit Institution, rolled out the Swasth Jananee, Swasth Shishu programme to educate and encourage communities to support Breastfeeding.
Commenting on the launch of this programme, Sanjay Khajuria, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Nestlé India stated “Nestlé has always believed that breastfeeding is the best nutrition for babies and we have created a number of initiatives to raise awareness on the importance of right nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life.
Even though the benefits of breastfeeding are generally known, good breastfeeding practices are not followed and breastfeeding rates in the country and especially in Delhi are very low. Therefore, we are keen to work together with Mamta to spread awareness about breastfeeding and good nutrition practices.”
The programme will be implemented by MAMTA, where it will focus on counselling to create awareness about early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding, and improving breastfeeding practices in the community. The objective is to help them improve nutrition, health and wellness of infants, as well as to help them understand the need to ensure the health and wellness of pregnant and lactating mothers.
The counselling by ‘peer mentors’ will also encourage and create awareness about gender equality, the need to adopt healthy practices irrespective of gender, seek support from the public health system and help the communities overcome societal barriers that unknowingly weaken the foundation for a child’s health. The effort will be to make breastfeeding a part of community knowledge and practice.
Launching the programme, Prof. Surendra Kumar Mishra, Senior Advisor, MAMTA said “This initiative with Nestlé is a step towards ensuring a strong foundation for a healthy child, by advocating breast milk within the first hour of child birth and maintaining exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of age.”
The programme was inaugurated by Raghuvinder Shokeen, MLA representing Nangloi Jat, New Delhi. It is being rolled out in the Nihal Vihar area of West Delhi, where it will reach out to over 100,000 people living in slum conditions.
