Empowering Communities

Sanitation is a major concern for the girl child and proper facilities are encouraging girls to attend schools.

Moreover, the school students are made aware of the importance of water conservation and protection, thereby ingraining the importance of responsible utilisation of water in them. The water awareness programme aimed at ensuring hygienic and sustainable water use has reached out to over 1,12,700 students across the country. The company has also partnered with the Department of Medicine and Health in Rajasthan to offer access to clean drinking water at 12 Public Health Centres (PHCs). Since 1999, the company has supported 260 clean drinking water facilities in schools near its factories, benefitting over 1,36,800 students are a boon as once the community's need is identified, the implementation of such facilities happens at a much rapid pace. Here, ready access unlocks opportunities for girl students. Nestlé has constructed modern, easily maintainable modular toilets made with durable materials – instead of cement and ceramic – to ensure that sanitation is not compromised upon. These sanitation blocks come with their own water supply and storage tank. The toilets are also constructed inside a cemented wall to ensure privacy for the students. The idea is to make sure that no student skips school due to lack of proper toilets as this is a major reason for lack of attendance in many schools. Five hundred and fifty sanitation facilities have been built to date, giving more than 1,82,000 girls access to clean toilets and the opportunity to lead healthier lives, as well as pursue their academic dreams. Nestlé India has also provided sanitation blocks in 59 schools in and around Samalkha. Safe toilets isn’t just a matter of convenience - they can make the difference between enabling a girl in accessing education and being forced to stay at home. A common problem, in some of the schools in the rural areas, is the lack of separate toilets for boys and girls, which is also seen as one of the major problems for the increased number of girls dropping out of these schools. Even in the few schools that have a dedicated toilet for the girl students, it is usually constructed in an open area that most of the students are reluctant to use for safety reasons. Many times, the school authorities have to fulfil procedural formalities for constructing rather basic sanitation facilities. In such instances, CSR projects like that of Nestlé's are a boon as once the community's need is identified, the implementation of such facilities happens at a much rapid pace.

Improving well being of pregnant and lactating mothers

Pregnant and lactating women are encouraged to form groups in which a peer leader is selected. The leader is provided training regarding the healthy practices that should be followed during pre and post pregnancy period. The peer leader then utilizes the various modules prepared by project Jagriti team on healthy practices and uses them to impart knowledge to the rest of the group. The programme also consists of dedicated outreach workers who conduct door-to-door visits to provide counselling to the selected beneficiaries. The outreach workers primarily act as facilitators for the groups, guiding and encourage peer-topeer learning. Currently, 12 outreach workers in Nangloi, West Delhi cover groups of pregnant women and lactating mothers. “We conduct door to door visits, provide counselling sessions if need be and regularly follow up with the help of ASHA workers,” says Neerja, one of the outreach workers in Nangloi, Delhi.
Peer mentorship is an effective method as it promotes a smoother transfer of knowledge since the group members are educated by a person who is from the community. The programme understands the effect of a malnourished childhood on the health of an individual over the course of their lives. Pregnancy and early years are, in fact, the most important stages for the brain development of a child. Recognising this, the programme intervenes at the crucial stages of life and aims to remove the barriers that inhibit healthy development of the mother and the child. Adolescents are included by conducting sessions and discussions that cover topics of hygiene, health, menstrual hygiene, in addition to other important topics related to adolescent health.
Young couples are positively affected when they are provided access to family planning services, made aware of gender equity norms, and are counselled on preconception care, marital communication, issues of health pertaining to young men, preventive mental, sexual and reproductive health. Mothers are informed about importance of exclusive breastfeeding and the right breastfeeding practices, and are encouraged to exclusive breastfeed for the first six months after the child is born.

In these marginalised communities, congested streets and overpopulated surroundings means that creating a clean environment becomes all the more challenging. Adolescents attending sessions on Nestlé Healthy Kids Programme often come from some of the most disadvantaged communities. They are vulnerable to malnutrition and its numerous consequences.
The programme employs the ‘sports for development’ approach for knowledge transfer. To implement the programme, community youth leaders and youth mentors are selected through a standardised process that helps identify one champion adolescent, per group, who is capable of handling the sessions. This is done in the first few sessions from a group consisting of around 25 adolescents. For example, small groups are created all over the Motilal Nehru camp area consisting of 500 students who are divided into groups consisting of 20-25 members in the respective localities. Once the group leader is identified, he/ she then receives training through modules created by Nestlé. Each module is used to relay information about good practices in health, hygiene, cooking, physical fitness, etc. The selected leader, who is called the Community Youth Leader, imparts this knowledge to the rest of the group through games and activity-based sessions.

Improving livelihood of coffee farmers

The training is done in consultancy with a network of agronomists and support workers in the coffee growing regions of the country. The aim is to direct the farmers to adopt more sustainable forms of agriculture practices that can accommodate commercial production while ensuring sustainability. The farmers who have attended the training, and have been able to incorporate these methods into their farmlands are verified against 4C (common code for coffee community) sustainable guidelines. The 4C certification, as a part of Nescafé plan, ensures sustainability in coffee farming and compliance. Premium pay off is ensured for the farmers supplying 4C verified green coffee to sustain the healthy practices taught through the training provided by Nestlé. The remuneration acts as motivation for the farmers to continue with the sustainable methods of farming rather than revert back to the methods they are used to.
The company has so far impacted the livelihoods of 2,500 coffee farmers in 99 villages, their families and farm workers through trainings, technical assistance, medical camps, soil test activities. It has trained these coffee farmers to develop good agricultural practices in terms of quality, productivity and sustainability.