Project for Rohingya Mothers
After the mass influx of Rohingyas into Bangladesh in 2017, there were lot of mothers, widows that were pregnant and/or lactating who needed care and support.
An appropriate food package was designed for nutritional support to these women and their children.
We interviewed a number of antenatal and post-natal women to understand their needs. We also consulted an expert on the subject, Dr. Shamsun Nahar, who did her PhD on “Impact of supplementary feeding on pregnancy and birth weight” from University of Cambridge, UK and currently a professor at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia.
Considering the culture and food habits of Rohingya women, we came up with the following list:
1. Power Milk (0.5Kg)
2. Chira/flattened rice/Poha (1Kg)
3. Jaggery/Panela (1Kg) (to appreciate Panela please visit: https://www.jivacubes.com/panela-2/)
4. Dates (0.5Kg)
6. Muri/Puffed Rice (0.5Kg)
7. Suger (1Kg)
8. A big air-tight container to keep the above foods fresh
9. Egg (difficult to distribute, was covered by cash)
10. Sea fish (difficult to distribute, was covered by cash
11. Meat (beef or chicken) (difficult to distribute,was covered by cash)
Total cost of items 1 to 8 is be about $12/pack
For a plan of in-kind distribution of the budget of $50000, we distributed the above package to 2000 antenatal and postnatal women every month. This gave us coverage for 2 months.
