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30 years of innovation
IN N O VAT ION means introducing changes for the betterment of human existence. This month, Helen Keller International (HKI) is celebrating 30 years of innovation in Bangladesh through its programs, which address poverty', food insecurity, malnutrition, and poor health.
Established in 1915, HKI is among the oldest international non-profit organisations devoted to fighting and treating preventable blindness, malnutrition and poverty. HKI provides development opportunities and builds local capacity by establishing nutrition and eye health programs in partnership with governments and local organisations.
Currently, HKI offers programs in 23 countries around the world, and has a long and successful history of work in the Asia-Pacific
region.
HKI began working in Bangladesh in 1978 to support the government's Blindness Prevention Program. Thirty years later. HKI reflects on a diverse track record, that includes the first Nutritional Blindness survey in 1982, the first large-scale homegardening, nutrition education project in 1990, and the world's longest Nutritional Surveillance Project in a developing country --conducted from 1990-2006.
Eye health and nutritional blindness
HKI/Bangladesh remains committed to the goal set by Helen Keller herself -- to lessen the suffering of those most in need.
The organisation is known throughout the world as a leader in addressing vitamin A deficiency through research, evidence-based
programing and social marketing. HKI's first program in Bangladesh, in fact, was assisting the government in monitoring and improving the distribution of high-dose vitamin A capsules through the Bangladesh Program for Prevention of Blindness (BPPB).
' In 1982-83,' HKI collaborated with the government of Bangladesh to conduct the Bangladesh Nutritional Blindness Study (BNBS). This study determined the number of children who had received vitamin A supplementation, and provided the basis for the vitamin A policy in Bangladesh for more than 15 years.
The main determinant of vitamin A deficiency is the dietary intake of vitamin A, which is inadequate for the majority of households in Bangladesh, making the National Vitamin A Capsule (VAC) campaign an essential strategy for child survival.
Throughout the 1990s, HKI initiated programs for the awareness and social marketing of vitamin A programs, and provided technical support in carrying out the national Vitamin A Campaign (VAC).
Although the government of Bangladesh's national VAC strategy is a globally recognised success, there are pockets of the population which are not being reached with live-saving vitamin, such as the urban slums and some geographically hard-to-reach areas of the country.
Currently, HKI is supporting ccommunity mobilisation and an extensive community awareness project in the hard-to-reach areas of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) to ensure that all families are aware of the benefits of vitamin A, and to encourage them to give vitamin A to children aged 9 to 59 months.
In the late 1980s, HKI provided technical assistance to the Bangladesh government to address the lack of educational and social opportunities for blind or visually impaired people. HKI
supported Bangladesh's nationwide Integrated Education Program and the Child Vision Project (2002-2006) by offering improved access to key training, information, communication and education (IEC) materials, and technical assistance and services to the schools and their resource teachers.
HKI continues to campaign and advocate for the broader needs of the disabled population in Bangladesh.
Food based strategies
Today, against the backdrop of the rising food prices and basic commodity price hikes, more people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide. Bangladesh is one of the worst-off countries with regards to malnutrition.
One way to address the problem of malnutrition is to make food available at the householdlevel through household food production strategies. Based on findings from the nutritional blindness study, HKI initiated b food production program to pro-
mote increased consumption of vitamin A-rich foods through home gardening as early as 1989.
In 2003, the program was expanded to include animal husbandry, since animal source foods are the best sources of dietary vitamin A. HKI's Homestead Food Production Program (HFPP) is currently being implemented in selected vulnerable geographic areas such as the chars in northern Bangladesh, the hilly areas of the CHT and the coastal belt of southern Bangladesh in an effort to establish a long-term, sustainable food-based strategy to improve access, to, and availability of, a variety of foods at the household level.
Food-based strategies are imperative for addressing household food insecurity as, in 2006, HKI and Institute of Public Health Nutrition (IPHN) reported findings from the Nutritional Surveillance Project (NSP) that only four percent of rural households in Bangladesh could afford an optimal or balanced diet.
The NSP findings also alluded to the poor infant and young child feeding practices across Bangladesh, which underly the
poor nutritional status of children under two years of age.
HKI was the first among donors and practitioners to integrate the Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) into its existing agriculture and health programs. ENA is an integrated package of health interventions that focus on children under two years of age, and pregnant and lactating women.
HKI's ENA pilot project in the northern char areas, which integrates optimal infant and young child feeding practices and women's nutrition into the Homestead Food Production
Program, has proven to be an effective startegy to improve child nutritional status.
HKI provides technical assistance to partner NGOs through training and by providing communication materials. HKI also provides regular monitoring and evaluation to ensure effective integration of ENA into existing programs.
Monitoring and evaluation par excellence
Surveys, evaluations and intervention research form the backbone of all HKI's activities, and the
organisation has extensive experience in linking research to program development.
HKI collects and disseminates information that informs program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and identifies critical issues and unmet needs that call for action.
HKI is devoted to help meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as VISION 2020, The Right to Sight
For 30 years, HKI in Bangladesh has played a leading role in fighting and treating preventable blindness, malnutrition, and-poverty. At this critical juncture, mid-way to the 2015 MDGs, HKI stands ready to serve and contribute to accelerating Bangladesh's progress towards meeting the needs of those that are most disadvantaged.
As Helen Keller said: "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." With special tribute to our donors and partners, we are proudly celebrating 30 years of innovation in Bangladesh.
Compiled by Parvez Babul, Information and Advocacy Officer of Helen Keller International. Bangladesh.