Tara is an Expat living in Mumbai. She loves our Dharavi Health and Nutrition Project and volunteered to write a short report about her experience while attending the last session on 6th October 2012. She will also create a cook book together with Nutritionists of FMCH. Read here about her Day in Dharavi:
FMCH runs a weekly clinics at the Reality Gives' community centre in Dharavi on Saturday afternoons. On alternate Saturdays a cooking demonstration is held or a talk about issues the participants would like to discuss.
This Saturday was cooking time! The knowledgeable and energetic Sneha Rout, a
FMCH nutritionist, led last Saturday's cooking demonstration. Four mothers with
their numerous children gathered round to listen and learn about the recipes
Sneha was preparing with the help of Nanda Goregaokar, a part-time FMCH cook. Nazia
and Sangeeta, Library and Youth Empowerment Program teachers with Reality Gives
helped facilitate the clinic, providing water, cleaning cooking utensils and
managing the crowd of children who had gathered. They both are from Dharavi as
well and know the attending women and children very well. Most of them
participated in other projects of Reality Gives before.
This week's nutritious menu included beetroot
milkshake, ragi upma and coconut, sesame and peanut ladoos.
Whilst Sneha chopped and prepared the food, she
engaged with each mother, explaining to them the nutritional quality of the
ingredients, such as beetroot and sesame seed, and made the demonstration an
interactive and fun event. As the mothers are illiterate, Sneha encouraged them
to repeat back to her the recipes both whilst the food was being prepared and
also afterwards so to help the mothers remember the recipes.
Once the full meal was complete, Sneha and Nanda
shared the milkshake, upma and ladoos amongst the children and mother. Everyone
agreed the food was delicious!
Afterwards the
nutritionists and teachers came together with the attending mothers to discuss
the health and nutrition status of their children and how they can improve it
or how it already got improved since the program started. The overall opinion
is that till now mostly the cooking skills and nutrition knowledge of the
mothers increased. For a review of the health status of the kids it needs more
time and a regular attendance.
Read more about the FMCH program in Dharavi on our website.
Read more about the FMCH program in Dharavi on our website.
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