The
Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) and the HealthPhone
project of The Mother and Child
Health and Education Trust (MCHET) today announced the formal launch of the nation-wide IAP HealthPhone programme, the world's largest digital mass education undertaking to
tackle malnutrition in mothers and children.
MCHET
is a charitable trust that strongly advocates for the
power of knowledge to educate, motivate, empower and inspire communities, and
particularly women, to improve health practices for the benefit of children. HealthPhone is a strategic and creative initiative of
MCHET. The IAP HealthPhone programme was established
through the vision of Nand Wadhwani to address the crying need for health and nutrition
information and education in India.
IAP HealthPhone is a
public private partnership initiative of HealthPhone that is being implemented under
the aegis of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics, in partnership with the Ministry
of Women and Child Development, UNICEF and Aamir Khan, and with support from
Vodafone. This unique programme leverages
the increasing penetration of mobile phones and by 2018 will educate over ten
million 13-35 year-old girls and women and their families in India on better
health and nutrition practices.
The
programme will achieve its objectives by widely promoting and distributing through
mobile phones four videos on: i) issues regarding the status of women; ii) the
care of pregnant women and children under two; iii) the importance of
breastfeeding and good nutrition; and iv) simple changes
in diet and caring practices that can significantly enhance nutrition
status. The videos are updates from the Poshan
series, jointly produced by MWCD and UNICEF in 18 Indian languages.
As a powerful
boost to the IAP HealthPhone programme and to encourage viewing of the four
videos, a special partnership with Vodafone India has been forged which will
enable its customers not only to view/download the videos free of data charges
but also, on viewing all four videos, to
receive Rs. 10 worth of free talk-time.
Vodafone will also send out approximately 300 million text messages every
year to its 184 million subscribers to encourage viewing of the four videos and
will support a comprehensive print and social media communication
campaign to promote the programme across the country.
IAP
HealthPhone and its partners are committed to strengthening the programme
through their networks and to synchronise their efforts to address malnutrition
systemically. As next steps they will:
·
equip frontline health
workers (Anganwadis, ASHAs and ANMs) with a HealthPhone microSD card,
containing a comprehensive library of videos, to enable them to share health and
nutrition knowledge with women, families and the communities they serve;
·
partner with social
media giants (such as Facebook, Twitter and Google) to use their exponentially-growing
channels to reach more caregivers, both rural and urban.
Harnessing
the power of affordable and ubiquitous technology, the three-year IAP
HealthPhone campaign has the potential to benefit the health of tens of millions
of children in India in the years to come and will be truly transformative in
educating mothers at the front-line of India’s fight against malnutrition.
For
additional information, please contact Nand Wadhwani at nand@motherchildtrust.org
Nand Wadhwani
The Mother and Child Health and Education Trust
Now that we can, we must!
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