For 10+ years, Vitamin Angels is helping underserved in India's fight against malnutrition

Last year, the findings of the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS 5) highlighted how issues like stunting and wasting continue to affect many children in India.

Additionally, anaemia has worsened across population groups, especially among mothers. India slipped to 101 among 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index (2021), a situation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A significant lack of accessibility, awareness, availability, and affordability towards nutrition is also not helping the situation. At present, improving the well-being of mothers, infants, and children is crucial to improving the health and productivity of the next generation.

Meet Vitamin Angels India (VA), an international non-profit organisation working to solve malnutrition issues among mothers and children under the age of five across the country. VA has been working to build equitable access to life-saving micro-nutrient supplementation and deworming tablets, train frontline health workers, and depart awareness at the community level.

“We strive to reach the most underserved and nutritionally vulnerable communities across the globe and in India,” Sunish Jauhari, President, Vitamin Angels India, tells SocialStory.

Call to action

Nutrition-specific interventions (dietary diversity, micronutrient supplementation, exclusive breastfeeding, treating childhood infections, and fortification) address immediate determinants of maternal and child health and well-being.

Optimal nutrition is critical for pregnant women and children under five. It affects the immediate and long-term growth, development, and health of the offspring and prevents negative consequences.

For example, optimal maternal nutrition reduces the risk for maternal anaemia and poor pregnancy outcomes while also preventing subsequent child undernutrition and stunting.

In over a decade of its operations in India, VA says it has reached more than 22 million pregnant and lactating women and children under the age of five with lifesaving evidence-based supplements.

It has a team of 20 in India, consisting of doctors and senior analysts.

So far, VA has conducted technical training for over 20,000 frontline health workers and service providers to ensure the successful delivery of these supplements.

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Working pan-India

“In India, our focus has been on building partnerships that can aid and accelerate meaningful impact in terms of nutrition delivery to socio-economically disadvantaged groups in hard-to-reach areas and provide support to state governments for the same. We have received grants from organisations in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding to address challenges in specific geographies,” says Sunish.

For example, it partnered with Omniactive Health Technologies in Maharashtra to deliver nutritional support to the districts of Buldhana, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nanded, Nagpur, Dhule, and Parbani districts that were witnessing low coverage of Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS).

“We have also done issue-specific fund-raising. For instance, we partnered with GiveIndia during last year’s ‘Danotsav’ to raise funds in order to tackle Vitamin A deficiency in India, a leading cause of childhood blindness,” he adds.

Most of its resources go into procurement, storage, and distribution of the supplementation, particularly VAS and deworming tablets for children under the age of five.

Since it is working at pan-India level, specifically focused on hard-to-reach areas of the country, and dealing with millions of women and children, the sheer scale itself creates demands for resources to manage the whole process of providing nutrition, Sunish says.

At the onset of the pandemic, VA India partnered with different NGOs and governments across nine states and Union Territories to ensure that there was uninterrupted access to critical EBNIs, including Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) for pregnant women and VAS and deworming tablets for children under-five among many communities.

In 2020, Vitamin Angels India says it reached over 6.4 million children under the age of five with Vitamin A, 193,000 children under the age of five with Albendazole, and over 78,000 pregnant women with MMS through government programmes.

Impact and change

Nagaland has been one of the high-impact states for VA. In 2005-06, VAS coverage in Nagaland was found to be only 6.6 percent among children under the age of five. In 2011, VA began its intervention in the state by partnering with local civil society and non-governmental organisations.

By 2016, it had formed a partnership with the Nagaland state government. In 2018, a Coverage Evaluation Survey conducted by the organisation showed that VAS coverage had improved to 72 percent, which is above the level recommended by the World Health Organisation.

In 2021, the Nagaland state government officially announced its partnership with Vitamin Angels to help address issues of child malnutrition and mortality for children under 5 across the State of Nagaland on September 17 during a consultative meeting at IDSP Hall, DHFW.

Vitamin Angels has worked across all states and union territories by tying up with local organisations, as well as through partnerships with local governments.

It currently has partnerships with 12 states and union territories, including Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Mizoram, Manipur, and Puducherry. It works with 1,800 partner organisations that include hospitals and health centres, 1,400+ NGOs, and faith-based organisations.