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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline MAY 03, 2024 | The Indian Eye 30

WHEELS Global Foundation, IIT Bombay HST,

and RIST Partnering to ‘Tackle Pervasive Newborn

Malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh

Ratan Agarwal, President WHEELS, explaining the initiative’ Paul Glick, Executive Director, RIST talking about RIST partnership

OUR BUREAU India, Madhya Pradesh, so as to im- page to learn and benefit from this Global Foundation, said: “Com-
pact lives of >10m mothers and ba- pioneering research and dedicated plexity and magnitude of challenges
New York, NY
bies. After amazing results in several effort from a passionate team, and in the health sector of India with its
ccording to latest Nation- districts across three States (Maha- help scale the effort to entire India 1.4 billion population are hard to
al Family Health Survey rashtra, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh) and all over the world. fathom. However, initiatives like this
A(NFHS-5) data in India, 36% where the babies gained as much Speaking at the event, Vinay bring equal-scale optimism through
of children are stunted, 32% are un- as five-fold more weight in first six Pradhan, Consul General of India, the power of technology, innovation,
derweight, and 21% are wasted. All months and exceeded all WHO stan- New York, said: “Today we hosted impact ecosystem, and public-private
that in spite of the fact that 64% of dards, HST team has taken its Cued- the event where WHEELS Global partnerships, whereby we are able to
women exclusively breastfeed their well technology-enabled train-the- Foundation launched an initiative deliver compelling and repeatable
babies. Behind this alarming data trainer model to enable thousands of to provide technology enabled solu- high-impact solutions at scale touch-
is the barely known fact – pervasive health & ICDS workers so mothers tions for taking care of malnourish- ing the lives of millions. This is what
poor breastfeeding techniques that can be taught proper breast-feed- ment in rural and remote areas in In- the society and country expect of IIT
result in babies constantly crying ing and nutritional intake practices. dia. Wheels Global Foundation has brand.”
for milk and mother’s giving up in On 9th April, Consulate Gener- been working since last 17-18 years Said Paul Glick, Executive Di-
frustration to switch prematurely to al of India (CGI), New York, hosted with state governments, rural com- rector, RIST: “At Rural India Sup-
external baby feeds if they can af- WHEELS leadership team along munities in India making real big dif- porting Trust (RIST), we strive to
ford & easily find. A problem that is with several well-known IIT alum- ference. While the Govt of India and support organizations and programs
completely fixable, and rather give ni, and its partners who are com- state govts are doing their bit, there that are combatting critical issues
those 86% of malnourished babies a plimenting its newborn nutritional remains a gap because of huge popu- and providing data-driven solutions
chance of a healthy life – physically health program with daily healthy lation that we have and the technol- to long-term challenges, With this
and mentally. meals to underserved school kids ogy aspect remains unattended on grant and partnership with Wheels
WHEELS Global Foundation across rural India -- Annapoorna some cases. I am really happy that Global, we hope to positively impact
(a social impact platform of global Trust serving >9m meals a day and CGI could partner with WHEELS Madhya Pradesh’s healthcare infra-
IIT alumni community)’s Newborn Akshaya Patra Foundation serving in a really small way. They are do- structure by reducing malnutrition in
Nutritional Health Initiative is scal- >2m meals a day. Given the massive ing commendable work in mobiliz- newborns. It is vital to address mal-
ing pioneering work of IIT Bombay’s benefits mothers and babies would ing IIT Alumni, financial support, nutrition at an early stage as it im-
Health Spoken Tutorials (HST) team drive from these simple-to-learn (via working back home with district au- pacts every phase of life and acts as
to address pervasive newborn mal- IIT-Bombay’s HST team’s >100 10- thorities, national health missions, a barrier to future growth and devel-
nutrition at scale. Washington D.C. min long video tutorials) towards societies and communities, to tackle opment for children. By recognizing
based RIST (Rural India Supporting a healthy life and healthy society, the challenges which are otherwise the needs of underserved communi-
Trust) with a large grant is supporting CGI and WHEELS hope those who unattended.” ties, we can collectively work towards
scaling of deployment of this initia- missed attending the public event Addressing the gathering, Ratan building a just and equitable society
tive across one of the largest State in would visit WHEELS’ initiative Agarwal, President, WHEELS for all.”

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