Students from SoBo school distribute nutritional bars among fellow runners.
While most of the city's teenagers would choose to enjoy and make merry on a pleasant Sunday morning, a bunch of schoolchildren from South Mumbai ran the 5-km Fun Run at the Stayfree Women For Change DNA I CAN Women’s Marathon. Their cause: To fight anaemia.
En route, they were munching glucose biscuits to maintain energy levels and also handed over nutrition bars, packed with goodness of ragi, sesame and jaggery, to fellow participants.
More than 20 students from Bright Start Fellowship International School (BSFIS), at Gowalia Tank in Grant Road were following the footsteps of a 21-year-old biochemistry student Rajvi Mehta. Mehta had introduced the concept of preparing and giving away 'gudness' bars that are similar to Indian chikki to school students in Mumbai under the project — Let's be Well Red.
Mehta's brainchild of making available iron packed nutrition bars in SoBo schools was first reported in DNA on October 30, 2012.
“Under the project, each nutrition bar containing 14mg of iron is made available at school canteens. It takes care of the nutritional needs, especially iron, of a child. Several schools in South Mumbai offer it at a minimal price of Rs10. We have undertaken the project in our school wherein we visit our peers at other schools and spread awareness about how low haemoglobin levels can be potentially fatal,” said Aashani Shah, a Std XII BSFIS student.
“While the ideal haemoglobin level for teenagers is 12mg/100 ml of blood, due to faulty food habits or lack of nutrition, children cutting across economic levels reel under the woes of low haemoglobin. This causes them to tire easily and leads to lack of concentration,” said Dr Pragnya Mehta, principal of BSFIS.
Last month, the students along with the doctors involved in the project met the chief minister Prithviraj Chavan with an appeal to include the 'gudness' bar in the mid-day meal scheme at civic-run schools, rural schools and aanganwadis across the state.
“Anaemia is responsible for upto 65% of maternal and infant deaths in the country. The fate of Maharashtra is no different. We have requested the state government to include the nutrition bar in the list of essential products due to it's high nutritive value and subsidised production costs,” said Dr Hemant Mehta, anaesthesiologist, Jaslok Hospital. Mehta is closely involved with the project.
He added, "At present, we are delivering the nutrition bars to school kids at 50 aanganwadis. We are giving it free of cost as a pilot experiment. Also, close to a 1,000 children from Gujarat are being supplied with these nutrition bars. The haemoglobin levels of these children will be tracked over a period of time to ensure that it is normal."
@DNA
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