India, with a population of more than 1.4 billion people, has many challenges in improving the health and nutrition of women, adolescents and children. Steady declines have been noted in fertility, maternal, infant & child mortalities and the prevalence of severe manifestations of nutritional deficiencies. This issue is often more intense in urban slums where it is exacerbated by a lack of quality nutrition services. The most vulnerable in these urban slums are pregnant, lactating mothers and young children whose nutrition status depends on the ability of the household to provide nutritious meals, the quality & uptake of nutrition services, and overall community support. Undernutrition is further compounded by a number of socio-cultural and economic barriers prevailing in the slums
Mehdipatnam Municipal Circle (Khairatabad Zone, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Telangana State) consists of 59 wards with 63,813 population across 14,135 households. Different social groups viz., SCs, Minorities, STs & OBCs, etc., live there with different occupations (fruits, flowers & vegetable vendors, construction workers, etc.). The Municipal Circle has 800 women Self Help Groups (SHGs) with around 8,000 members and there are a total of 11 Slum Level Federations (SLFs). The proposed operational geography of the Nutrition and Health Project is 10 slums in the Mehdipatnam Municipal Circle
This Nutrition and Health Project, funded by WIPRO Cares, is implemented by APMAS. The Project aims to address gender barriers for improved health and nutrition behaviour in pregnant and lactating women (PLW) through SHG platforms in the urban slums of GHMC, Telangana