For Bamri Pahadin, it was a daily struggle to make her ends meet. Weighed down by acute poverty, it was an arduous task for her in bearing her family's average monthly expenses of INR 2000 on vegetable consumption. Residing in the remote village of Kairabani in Karmatanr panchayat of Littipara block, she had to take a tiresome walk of 8 kms to the weekly haat for the purchase of vegetables.
With Prabha's much needed assistance, Bamri has been able to practise the concept of a nutrition garden in her backyard. She now grows a wide variety of vegetables through it. Gone are the days of long, tiresome walks and heavy expenses incurred on vegetables.
The nutrition garden initiative has helped Bamri in taking a giant leap towards attaining self sufficiency in vegetable cultivation as well as addressing the nutritional requirements of her family.
In Sushila Malto, we have a new age village entrepreneur,reaping the benefits owing to her association with a women's based self help group, formed and ably supported by Prabha. Trained and well versed in the art of making mango pickle,she has been able to bring a major turnaround not only in her own life, but to the life of her entire community. With a small investment of INR 200, she was able to generate a revenue of INR 800 from the adjacent weekly markets of Littipara, Chatkam and Kunjana. She replicated the idea in producing pickles from raw hog plums, which was again a huge success. She intends to continue her endeavor in making pickles from all kinds of seasonal fruits.
Her success story is now part of rural folklore. Suahila's initiative has now become an epitome of replication and further scaling up by the other female members of the community.
Tulsi Kumar, a child from Dhorwa Mouli tola in Sonaraithari block, was a severely acute malnourished child (SAM), identified through one of Prabha's nutrition camps. His heart wrenching condition had taken its toll on his parents. Apart from suffering from diarrhoea,he had low haemoglobin count before being admitted to a malnutrition treatment centre in Deoghar. As his condition worsened due to the onset of diarrhoea, and its rapid spread due to his weak, malnourished state, he was referred to Sadar hospital, Deoghar.
Along with infusion of blood units, he was treated for fever, worms and dehydration. With proper health care, nutrition and hygiene management, he got completely recovered in a month's time. Tulsi is now leading a normal, healthy life like any other child of his age. Prabha's intervention has been instrumental in sensitizing Tulsi's parents about his prompt nutritional and hygiene management.
