To mark the beginning of National Nutrition Month, Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Sanjeev Verma today inaugurated a day-long State Level Workshop on POSHAN Abhiyan- the PM’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment of children. The launching ceremony, organized by State Mission Directorate, ICDS J&K here at Convention Centre, was attended by Deputy Commissioner Jammu, Ramesh Kumar, Director, Food & Nutrition Board, New Delhi, Sudhir Prasad, Director Social Welfare, Dr Bharat Bhushan, ADDC Jammu, Suraiya Jabeen, Progamme Officer ICDS Jammu, Natasha Kalsotra besides District Programme Officers, SDPOs and other officers of concerned departments.Emphasizing the role of nutrition for health, especially for children and women, the Div Com said that POSHAN Abhiyan is one of the many important components of National Nutrition Mission aiming towards promoting positive behaviour change towards infants and young child feeding practices.He said that the welfare of children forms the base for many schemes and policies and stressed on convergent efforts by all stakeholders to achieve the challenging task of eradicating malnutrition.Maintaining basic health standards is not only aimed by India but United Nation has also set its goals for eradicating malnutrition, the Div Com maintained.
The Div Com appreciated all the DCs, POs, CDPOs and other concerned officers for putting dedicated efforts towards fighting malnutrition and asked them to prioritize rural, far flung and slum areas for extending the outreach of nutrition awareness.The Div Com also outlined the responsibilities of concerned functionaries to make the system efficient for the benefit of the children being covered under ICDS schemes.The Div Com entrusted upon concerned officers to form a working group to ensure that good quality food, clean drinking water shall reach the children. He further asked them to prepare a proposal for effective utilization of abandoned school buildings for the welfare of children and women.The Div Com also inspected the stalls installed by the organisers and interacted with the participants. “Whatever you learn here implement it for the larger interest of the people”, the Div Com asked the participants.Deputy Commissioner Jammu, Ramesh Kumar also spoke on the importance of healthy food for eradicating malnutrition.Resource persons and Guest Speakers presented an informative presentation on Nutrition care whereas Ravish Rana, Swast Bharat Prerak, explained the aim and objectives of POSHAN Abhiyan to prevent and reduce stunting, under-nutrition children and to reduce the diseases like anaemia, diarrhoea and so on.
Deputy Director, ICDS Jammu, Deepika Rana conducted the proceedings of the programme.Assistant Culture Officer, Information Department, Jeevan Sharma supported by Drama Instructor Vijay Anand besides Senior Cultural Assistants, Kamal Kumar, Yash Kumar, Suresh Kumar, Mohinder Kumar, Rakesh Kumar and Bodh Raj enthralled the participants with his song performance on importance of Nutrition for Health. A skit was also presented to sensitize the participants about the importance of nutrition.The participants learned several key nutrition strategies and interventions including IYCF(Infant and Young child feeding),Food and Nutrition, Immunisation, Institutional Delivery, WASH(Water, Sanitation and Hygiene),De-worming, ORS-Zinc, Food Fortification, Dietary Diversification, Adolescent Nutrition, Maternal Health and Nutrition, ECD(Early childhood development)/ECCE(Early Childhood care and Education), Convergence, ICT-RTM(Information and Communication, Technology enabled Real Time Monitoring) and Capacity Building during the workshop.