India's Malnourished Children Find Hope

"South Asia is the world's largest repository of alnour-ished children," says Chaudhuri, " and, in India, 50 per cent are malnourished." Chaudhuri attributes this to what he calls the generational effect wherein a malnourished girl child grows into a small woman, married off early and then delivers a small child of about 2.5 kg. "Eighty percent of our brain growth occurs from conception till two years of age and one of three children in India today is born with malnutrition," he explains.So in India "we're breeding a generation of idiots while only 50 per cent are growing nor-mally". Most health programmes, he points out, reach these children after 2-3 years, missing out on a vital period of growth.

It was this simple reading which niggled at Chaudhuri's conscience from the time he opened his clinic, not a charitable one, for,there's no dignity in free services, he feels. Patients had to pay a nominal fee of 25 paise to begin with, which today has risen to about Rs 5. As the Thakurpukur clinic grew popular, Chaudhuri, an MD in paediatrics from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, gave up his private practice and with a grant of $40,000 from the Catholic Relief Society, launched full-fledged nutritionional services for severely malnourished children, door-to-door education programmes for women in the village areas in South 24 Parganas, for which he roped in women workers. "Today, we run the largest women's training programme in the country covering almost 200,000 people in 70 villages of West Bengal," he says.

In the late '80s, Chaudhuri launched his urban programme, CINI-Asha, which involved street children in Calcutta and child labourers. By far, CINI-Asha's most successful effort has been drop-in shelters for homeless children where basic education is also imparted. CINI-Asha's reach has spread to about 5,000 children in slums, by way of half-way homes for street children, in redlight areas, HIV awareness drives and a 24-hour emergency phone out-reach service for children.

But the programme dearest to Chaudhuri's heart has been the unique Adopt-a-Mother Scheme, a culmination of all his efforts towards raising a generation of healthy Indians.The basic idea is to get sponsors to adopt underprivileged expectant mothers for 30 months for a sum of Rs 6,000 or Rs 200 per month." We target the woman right from conception, ensure that she puts on at least 8 kg, educate the family on diet, hygiene,ante-natal and post-natal care. The child is monitored for two years during which adopters are sent regular reports and photographs."

Largely dependent on individuals and donor agencies, Chaudhuri laments that the Adopt-A-Mother Scheme has still not caught on in India. Abroad, he struck gold in Italy where 1,000 sponsors formed an association called Friends of CINI. The response was equally encouraging in the UK and the US and Chaudhuri now plans to set up such societies in France and Germany.

Any visitor to the Thakurpukur centre on a Thursday morning is greeted with the sight of at least 500 expectant and new mothers waiting for their weekly check-ups. Says Chaudhuri: "In our project area, we've brought down the percentage of low birth-weight children to 15 per cent from an earlier 30 per cent."

If you want to help raise a healthy India today, write to Dr Samir Chaudhuri at Village Daulatpur, P.O. Pailan, via Joka, 24 Parganas (South), West Bengal, Pin 743512 or call at (033) 4678192/1206, for as Chaudhuri says: "Tomorrow's too late."