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Programmes |
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Advocacy
and Networking |
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Year
2004
| Powerpoint
presentation on exclusive breastfeeding
and other related issues
A PowerPoint presentation
Promoting Exclusive Breastfeeding For
the first Six Months: How to be successful
has been prepared. This consists on
information on exclusive breastfeeding
and guidelines for practicing exclusive
breastfeeding for the first six months
in simple language. This will be used
disseminating information on the issue
to general public and all concerned
individuals. It will be disseminated
to BPNI district coordinators, UNICEF
Offices, concerned non-government organisations
and IBFAN national focal points in the
region.
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| Participation
in Workshop on Universalisation with
Quality
An Agenda for
the ICDS. The Centre for Rural Studies,
Mussoorie and Centre for Equity Studies,
New Delhi organised a workshop, Universalisation
with Quality: An Agenda for the ICDS
on 29-30 December 2004. Upon invitation
National Coordinator of BPNI made a
presentation on Infant and Young Child
Feeding Counselling: Services to Sustain
as a means to improve quality of services
in ICDS. Participants included representatives
of the governments, other agencies involved
in ICDS, researchers and key persons
from National Advisory Council. Outputs
of the workshop will be sent as a report
to the National Advisory Council. A
paper was shared with all the participants.
Papers presented at the conference are
likely to be included in a special publication
of Economic and Political Weekly.
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| Participation
in Conference of Society of Midwives
(SOM)
BPNI participated
in the 3rd national conference of the
Society of Midwives held at Jamia Hamdard
University, New Delhi. Dr. J.P. Dadhich
spoke on Relevance of appropriate feeding
practices in reducing neonatal mortality.
Approximately 60 persons from across
the country attended the meeting. Useful
interaction took place and BPNI and
SOM would now be able to collaborate
more closely in future work. |
| Participation
in National Human Rights Commission
and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan’s National
Public Hearing on Child Health
Part of an ongoing series
of regional public hearings on Right
to Health Care, a national hearing was
organised by National Human Rights Commission
in collaboration with the Jan Swasthya
Abhiyan on 16th and 17th December
2004 in Delhi. BPNI was one
of the members of drafting group for
‘Child Health Recommendations’.
Dr. Arun Gupta made a presentation along
with Dr. Vandana Prasad and Devika Singh.
Recommendations were shared with all
the participants. |
| National
Sharing Workshop for district coordinators
of BPNI. A two-day programme was conducted
in Delhi
Twenty district
coordinators who had conducted a study
on Status of Infant and Young Child
Feeding in their district participated.
Dr. Arun Gupta, National Coordinator
made a presentation on IYCF action at
district level. Dr. R.K. Anand in his
address emphasized to make use of government’s
positive information, and made a plea
to increase membership of BPNI, make
use of BPNI’s training on IYCF
and at any cost make efforts for unity.
His vision also included the expansion
of district branches of BPNI. Dr. Tarsem
Jindal made an appeal to reach people
at the family level with the message
of breastfeeding. |
| Participation
in the WABA’s International Gender
Training Workshop, Penang
Dr. J.P. Dadhich, from
BPNI participated in the WABA Gender
Training Workshop held on 29
November to 1 December 2004,
at Penang, Malaysia. The objective of
the Workshop was to introduce gender
as an issue and strategy framework for
improving breastfeeding advocacy and
program. Applying a gender perspective
to breastfeeding programmes will help
us analyse how gender identities shape
the health and other social conditions
of women and men and identify possibilities
for action for a more gender equal society.
It must take into account the different
needs of women and men based on their
biology, and also the broader socio-economic
and cultural context of different groups
of people in different regions of the
world. Dr. Dadhich has submitted a report
of the meeting to the national coordinator
for incorporating suggestions for mainstreaming
of the gender in the BPNI activities
and functioning. The report has been
shared with the managing committee members
for their valuable comments. |
| Governments
calls a meeting of experts on Infant
and Young Child Feeding on 8th November
2004
A meeting of
experts and the key government departments
concerned with infant and young child
feeding was held under the chairpersonship
of Smt. Reva Nayyar, Secretary, MWCD
in New Delhi. The objective of this
meeting was to brainstorm the issue
of promoting optimal IYCF practices
in the country so that the same could
be reflected suitably in the agenda
for the first meeting of the National
Nutrition Mission likely to be held
shortly under the chairpersonship of
Hon’ble Prime Minister. BPNI was
invited to provide inputs about this
issue. The MWCD has shared the minutes
of the meeting with all state level
WCD authorities; these reflect clearly
the action required for IYCF to achieve
10th Five Year Plan goals, and slowly
Government of India is moving towards
implementing the global strategy on
IYCF. |
| Release
of National Report on Status of Infant
and Young Child Feeding in 49 Districts
(98 Blocks) of India 2003
BPNI released its National
Report on Status of IYCF in 49 Districts
(98 Blocks) of India 2003 at Hotel Claridges,
New Delhi on 1st September 2004. This
report is based on interviews of about
9000 mothers, reveals a very low rate
of starting breastfeed within one hour
and exclusive breastfeeding for the
first six months. This study was conducted
from two blocks each of 49 districts
across 25 states and 3 union territories
of India. The report emphasizes that
promotion of optimal infant and young
child feeding practice, including exclusive
breastfeeding for the first six months
and continued breastfeeding for two
years or beyond along with appropriate
and adequate complementary feeding starting
after six months, is crucial for the
prevention of malnutrition. The report
was released by Shri Jairam Ramesh,
Member of Parliament and member of the
National Advisory Council, who pointed
out that malnutrition was high not only
in poorer states but also in certain
pockets of progressive states. He also
said that if we continue in the present
way, it would take 40 years to effectively
reduce child malnutrition. Thus, infant
and young child feeding provides a great
window of opportunity towards lowering
infant and young child malnutrition.
Smt. Reva Nayyar, Secretary, Ministry
of Women and Child Development (MWCD),
Ms. Erma Manoncourt, Dy. Director, Programs,
UNICEF India, WHO, various NGOs and
professional bodies participated in
the report release function.
The importance of the report is evident
from the fact that it has been quoted
in World Bank Report, World Health Report
2005 and Economic and Political Weekly.
|
| Facilitation
of release of National Guidelines on
Infant and Young Child Feeding on 6th
August 2004
During the WORLD BREASTFEEDING
WEEK (WBW) celebrations, the National
Guidelines on Infant and Young Child
Feeding was released to the nation.
This is one of the activities where
India has taken a lead in harmonising
the Global Strategy for Infant and Young
Child Feeding recommendations. Ms Kanti
Singh, the then Minister of State, HRD,
Secretary, MWCD, Joint Secretary, MWCD
and MOHFW were present. Other departments
and most of the media attended the release
function. |
| Participation
in NGOs Consultation for Care of Under
Three Children. On 27th-28th April 2004
MP VHA and UNICEF organised
NGOs Consultation for Care of Under
Three Children at Indore. Representing
BPNI, Dr. Arun Gupta expanded on the
role that grassroots NGOs can play to
initiate early breastfeeding, establish
exclusive breastfeeding, and ensure
continued breastfeeding with adequate
and appropriate complementary feeding
from six months onwards till two years
and beyond. |
| Inputs
provided for finalisation of National
Guidelines on Infant and Young Child
Feeding
Draft guidelines
of the MWCD, MOHRD were shared with
key national partners including IMA,
IAP, FOGSI, NNF, TNAI, FORCES for comments.
Several meetings were held with the
officials of MWCD to provide our comments.
The MWCD launched this guideline during
the WBW. |
| Inputs
into RCH-II for strengthening IYCF component
BPNI analysed
the draft RCH document called PIP and
sought involvement of state coordinators
for input into state PIPs. Inputs into
a key Government of India-MOHFW meeting
RCH –II and Child Health Strategy
in India: Effectively Addressing Child
Mortality and Malnutrition in India.
The National Coordinator presented a
paper entitled Achieving high rates
of exclusive breastfeeding in India.
He also took part in the working group
on IYCF and helped in finalising recommendations.
Several advocacy documents on child
survival including data from Lancet,
were developed for this meeting and
shared with all the participants.
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Prioritising
Action for Protecting, Promoting and
Supporting Breastfeeding
As a follow
up of the APCON, a Planning Meeting
of Nine Infant Feeding Experts was
held on 12-14 March 2004
at Mussoorie to brainstorm and evolve
key actions on infant and young child
feeding. The experts, who represented
partner organisations such as NNF,
NIPCCD, UNICEF, discussed the recommendations
of the APCON as well as the National
Planning Meeting on Infant and Young
Child Feeding, and five regional planning
meetings on IYCF implemented by the
BPNI in partnership with Food and
Nutrition Board (FNB), Ministry of
Women and Child Development (MWCD)
GOI in collaboration with UNICEF and
several professional and other partners
at state level. The passage of The
Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles
and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production,
Supply and Distribution) Amendment
Act 2003” was considered a great
step forward and a key instrument
in India to protect, promote and support
breastfeeding. The expert group took
note of the draft “National
guidelines on infant and young child
feeding” emerged as an outcome
of the above project, and being finalised
by MWCD. This action has led to harmonisation
of national guidelines with the Global
Strategy for Infant and Young Child
Feeding. The group made urgent and
specific recommendations related to
advocacy, capacity building and training,
implementation of the IMS Act, strengthening
of the health care system, and monitoring,
research and interventions. These
include, among others,
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Documenting best practices,
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Establishing centres of excellence
amongst “baby friendly”
hospitals and health centres that
have managed to create baby friendly
communities,
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Rejuvenating BPNI’s project
on “strengthening pre-service
education”,
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Developing and publishing a core
set of training material for all
levels of core competency with a
focus on skills in counselling IYCF,
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Establishing a process for giving
inputs into RCH II, including preparing
a Strategy Note, and
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Establishing working groups to produce
a policy paper on maternity protection.
It was also decided to
strengthen the BPNI network and training
resources by setting up a training cell
in Gorakhpur to be coordinated by Dr.
K.P. Kushwaha.
Inputs provided for improving RCH programme
of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Dr. Arun Gupta attended a meeting at
the MOHFW chaired by the Secretary,
Department of Family Welfare. The meeting
followed an extensive consultation Dr.
Gupta had with communication experts
on ways to promote the Global Strategy
on Infant and Young Child Feeding.
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| Management
Committee Meeting. A Management Committee
Meeting held on 29th February 2004
Following the
National Convention. Dr. K.P. Kushwaha
and Dr. J.P. Dadhich were special invitees.
The meeting followed the points raised
at the National Convention. BPNI has
entered into a special partnership with
UNICEF, and the National Coordinator
presented the operational plan. The
Committee confirmed the selection of
Gorakhpur as the coordinating centre
for training, and looked into the possibility
of starting a certificate course in
IYCF. The Management Committee recommended
the setting up of a Task Force on HIV
and Infant Feeding, which was subsequently
done, with Dr. M.M.A. Faridi as the
coordinator. The Committee also confirmed
that an annual BPNI event of 2 ½
days will be held to include BPNI Foundation
Day – 3rd December – at
different venues across the country
to enable the members to meet and dialogue
with one another at least once a year.
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| National
Conference of IAP, 2004
Through the
efforts of senior BPNI member Dr. S.
Jayam, the IAP provided a complimentary
stall to BPNI for three days at the
PEDICON- 2004, to exhibit its material
and conduct advocacy. Members of the
Tamil Nadu branch of BPNI assisted in
the effort. About 700 doctors visited
the stall and appreciated the work done
by the organisation. |
| Extending
Support to Government. On 21st January
2004
BPNI National Coordinator
presented the MOHFW with a Strategy
note on Strengthening optimal infant
and young child feeding in RCH II. The
note stressed the main components of
this:
o Strengthening the BFHI initiative
o Training and capacity development
o Communication for changing care/feeding
behaviour
o Community action for baby friendly
communities
o Monitoring, research and evaluation.
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Participation in the World Social
Forum, 2004
BPNI participated in
the World Social Forum held in Mumbai
from 14-24 January 2004, as a partner
of the People’s Health Assembly.
About 75,000 delegates from over 500
national and international organisations
from more than 100 countries participated
in the event. Jessy George represented
our organisation, BPNI.
Besides distribution of material including
the Delhi Declaration and guidelines
on breastfeeding and complementary feeding,
the organisation took up a stall to
display its material, including material
on the World Breastfeeding Week 2004.
Thousands of people visited the stall
and were interested to know more about
breastfeeding, the organisation and
its activities. BPNI also organised
a role-play on breastfeeding at an open
stage venue, as well as a rally, with
the theme, “Breastfeeding is the
right of the mother and the child.”
The World Social Forum gave BPNI a unique
opportunity to participate in the People’s
Health Assembly (14-15 January 2004)
and the working group meeting of Jan
Swasthya Abhiyan. Over 700 participants
from 50 countries attended the People’s
Health Assembly, where activists and
representatives of international health
organisations like WHO met and discussed
ways of centrestaging health in the
political process. The BPNI annual report
and a message from the National Coordinator
were distributed at the working group
meeting of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan.
BPNI is a member of the National Coordination
Committee of the JSA. With this participation
we have benefited of linkage with the
social movements, sensitisation of a
large number of persons on the issue
of Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF)
and WBW 2004 announcement popularised.
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Area
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