There is a clear demarcation between social classes in India and nowhere is it more evident than in the nutritional landscape.

Amway India’s ‘Power of 5’ programme, launched in 2018, revealed that in India every second underprivileged child below five years of age could be affected by malnutrition. Amway launched its globally successful community-based program ‘Power of 5’ as a pilot in India in collaboration with MAMTA Health Institute for Mother and Child. The programme was targeted at the mothers and caregivers of children under the age of 5 years and aimed to improve the nutritional knowledge and practices inclusive of complementary feeding, hygiene practices, growth monitoring and dietary diversity through extensive educational interventions.

In its pilot phase, the programme was launched in Kirari, an urban slum and resettlement colony of North West Delhi. Over 9700 children were surveyed under the age of five years and come across that most of the children were grappling with huge nutritional gap with 17 per cent children wasted, 31 per cent underweight and 46 per cent stunted. Out of 9700 children, 1700 were wasted and were identified for further monitoring through the entire course of the programme.

The results at the end of the campaign were startling and at the same time encouraging highlighting that number of children in the Wasted category dropped from 1700 to 328 (79 per cent drop), in the Underweight category dropped from 1236 to 455 (44 per cent drop) and in the Stunted category dropped from 750 to 484 (14 per cent drop). Anshu Budhraja, CEO, Amway India, says, “The malnutrition scenario in our country is in a precarious situation with 31 per cent of the total 150.8 million stunted children in the world and half of all 'wasted' children across the globe.1. At Amway India, we are committed to use our vast global experience in nutrition and wellness to contribute to the Government of India’s National Nutrition Mission to raise the nutrition levels in the country.”

“Our community-based nutritional education intervention to mother also shows that a simple, yet extensive outreach is the way to improve the nutritional status of under-five children. The first-year result of the ‘Power of 5’ campaign is quite promising, and we intend to take this program forward on a much larger scale ultimately making an impact in the lives of as many mothers and children as possible. While continuing to do community work in the identified area of nutrition, we have plans to replicate the same in other states across the country.” Mr. Budhraja, added.

Aligned with the Central Government's National Nutrition Mission, the ‘Power of 5’ program benefitted 10000 children under-five and over 30,000 mothers and caregivers by offering holistic solutions to create awareness and implementing educational interventions. ASHA workers, ANM and Anganwadi workers were sensitized to drive the behavior change among the parents and communities by establishing synergies for timely and inclusive service deliveries to the identified beneficiaries. The programme also significantly improved infant breastfeeding practices, vaccination coverage, Vitamin A dosage and deworming coverage. Dr. Sunil Mehra, Executive Director, MAMTA-HIMC says, “Malnutrition in children under 5 years of age is one of the biggest challenges to child health and development in our country resulting in almost 50% of child mortality. We are very happy to partner with Amway India to launch their globally successful program that addresses malnutrition, wasting and stunting in an urban-poor location for a cohort of 10,000 children. And it is encouraging to note that in the first year of intervention the program has shown a significant shift in the nutritional status of these children besides strengthening knowledge and feeding practices of the parents.”

Education Interventions introduced during the campaign and their results establish the extensive need for on-ground engagement and education of mothers and caregivers to address the malnutrition situation in India. Regular counselling was provided to the beneficiary groups to help them provide better care for their children. Multiple edutainment sessions and nutritional recipe demonstrations were also organized during the span of the program to better equip everyone in attendance. Families of 98.5 per cent children in the age-group of 0-24 months informed that the child was breastfed since birth, as compared to 85.8% in the baseline survey Families giving feeds other than breast milk in the first three days after childbirth reduced from 30 per cent (baseline) to 11.5 per cent (end-line). These other feeds consist of honey, infant formula, Janam ghutti, sugar syrup, gripe water, sugar/glucose water, and fruit juice.

Around 91.5 per cent of families initiated breastfeeding of the new-born within one hour of childbirth compared to 86.2 per cent a year ago. Vaccination Coverage: All the doses of BCG, Hepatitis and DPT vaccines was observed to be high. Immunization coverage of basic vaccines in the end-line (81.5 per cent) showed a marked improvement from the baseline (61.5 per cent) Vitamin A dosage & Deworming: Around 77.5 per cent of the children had received a dose of Vitamin A within the last six months as compared to the baseline survey where it was around 70.1 per cent The intake of any drug for intestinal worms in the last six months was reported to be 54.1 per cent, as compared to 46.3 per cent in the baseline survey.