Reality Gives teachers Malika and Asthma have been interviewing households in Dharavi about health and nutrition. As part of a research project being undertaken by v-shesh, an organisation dedicated to connecting youth and women to income opportunities, our teachers are being employed during the summer season to undertake this survey work.

“This is fabulous experience for the teachers” according to Lakshmi, Headmistress of the Reality Gives English Language Support Program. The teachers will be undertaking home visits as part of the interviews. “This will be good practice for conducting academic home visits in this new school year.”

This kind of community interaction will be a much larger focus of our English Language Support Program in the next year as we try to encourage more parent involvement in our students’ education. This makes it very helpful to have teachers with formal experience in conducting these types of visits.

The research is part of a study to gauge the extent of malnutrition amongst the BOP population, especially children in the age group 0-3 years, in Maharashtra. The survey will be used to understand different aspects of the household living, such as current food habits of the families,foods consumed by mother, children and other household members, the kind of food products they get from anganwadis and whether they are actually consumed, methods of food cooked by the families, affordability, etc.

The results of the nutrition survey will help paint a picture of what kind of nutritional supplements could be given to the children in future which could help them increase their nutritional levels and affordability. We’ll keep you posted as the results are published!