Our Projects

Preventing Anaemia among non-school going adolescent girls in West Bengal

Department of Health & Family Welfare (DH&FW), Govt. of WB initiated a pilot project-- Preventing Anaemia among non-school going adolescent girls in West Bengal’ in 6 backward district in West Bengal through 3 different NGO’s where BITAN was responsible for Jalpaiguri & Coochbehar districts.

BITAN was responsible for implementing the project in all 162 Gram Panchayats of 16 Blocks under two districts viz. Jalpaiguri (8 Blocks--Alipurduar-1 & 2, Kumargram, Kalchini, Madarihat, Matiali, Nagrakata, Mal) and Coochbehar (8 blocks--Dinhata 1 &2, Tufanganj-1 &2, Mathabhanga-1 & 2, Sitalkuchi & Setai) districts.

Objectives of the project was:

1) To promote awareness among the target group about reproductive & sexual health issues including nutrition and their behavioral change in personal & menstrual hygiene and food habit

2) To reduce the prevalence of Anaemia among the target group of 10-19 year.

What we feel

A rapid assessment of the status of anemia prevalence was done by BITAN using the regular monthly data of the districts. There the situations remained to be quite alarming and needs immediate attention. It also showed that perhaps a one or two year project is not sufficient to reduce prevalence of anemia among adolescent girls. During implementation it was felt that this complementary and supplementary role of NGO and the partnership is a good and effective model in addressing anemia among young girls.