Caritas India has launched a programme ‘Utthan’ to address malnutrition in 60 villages of Chhattisgarh on November 30, 2018, at Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

Caritas India Management traveled to the center-east of the country with its programme team to kick off the programme against a scourge that stunts the growth of 53 percent children in the state.

The pilot phase of the preparatory programme is funded by Caritas Germany and implemented by five partner organisations in Bastar, Raigarh, Jashpur and Surguja districts.

Caritas India has targeted nutrition in Chhattisgarh to achieve the goal of “Empowered Communities to promote Good Governance and ensure Increased Effectiveness of Public Services Delivery system and address malnutrition issues”.

Fr. Jolly, Caritas India Assistant Executive Director shared, “According to the statistics 4.6 Crore children in the world are malnourished and in India one-third of the total population of children fall under the malnourishment scale. Chhattisgarh is one of the states where malnutrition status is below average”.

“Malnutrition and its eradication need mission mode approach, and every individual needs to work towards institutional commitment with accountability to the community as well as to the donors who have put trust on Caritas India and its partners. Working with 60 villages in diverse communities will be challenging but it offers a great opportunity to create exemplary models. Thus, this is a great need to overcome and show the 0% malnutrition in target areas and create a model for others”, he said.

The programme will strengthen 41,574 Tribal population in 60 villages for their livelihood and food security, in four focused blocks of the four districts. It will empower Community Institutions (CBOs) and PRIs to ensure marginalized Tribal Communities -PVTGs, Dalits, and PLWDs have improved access to entitlements & Government flagship programs related to PDS, ICDS, MDM, JSY, NRLM, MNREGA etc and enhanced Food and Nutrition security through “On-Farm and “Off-Farm” initiatives.

Fr. Joseph Raj, Regional Forum Director pointed out that every day 200 million people are dying because of hunger that means these people do not have food to eat, in India we not only produce more grain but also waste the grain. Chhattisgarh also produces more grain but still, there is hunger. People in the village eat staple food because they are not able to afford nutrition food. He assured that our reach in the interior villages can make it possible to achieve 0% malnutrition.

Bishop Emmanuel Kerketta of Jashpur remarked that in achieving the desired project objectives there will be a lot of challenges related to your organizational identity as church-affiliated institutions. So, we will have to have an extra commitment to work and not be discouraged by such situations. We need to bring change in the community and change happens in the small units. Whichever village we have taken, we need to work with commitment and responsibility and also be accountable to the community as well as to the donor agencies as well.

After the launch, an orientation program for all the implementing partner was organized to give the basic background of the program context and initiate the implementation. The Intention is to help each and every partner to develop a common understanding of the program, its activity, and strategy to achieve the goals.

The Launching program was attended by the prominent guests – H.E. Rev Emmanuel Kerketta (Bishop of Jashpur) who is also Caritas India Board Member, Fr. Jolly (Executive Director CI), Fr. Sushil Modi (Administrator CI), Fr. Joseph Raj (Director CG forum), and Fr. Stany Tirkey (Director XISA, Raipur), and Dr. Francis Beck (Officer on Special Duty to the Health Minister and former Deputy Director, Health Dept. CG).