Health and Nutrition
focuses on maternal and neonatal care, child survival and family planning
FIVDB since its inception is active in the field of health, nutrition, family planning, provision of portable water and sanitation. For a long while, FIVDB trained rural health workers and traditional birth attendants.
FIVDB’s health program presently focuses on maternal and neonatal care, child survival and family planning. FIVDB is involved in malaria control and water and sanitation (WASH) activities. FIVDB’s health activities are concentrated around greater Sylhet region where there are high levels of maternal, infant and child mortality, malnutrition resulting in stunting in growth of children. FIVDB is also involved in providing a full scale diploma course on midwifery in association with James P. Grant and BRAC University.
In the promotion of safe water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition, FIVDB has a long legacy of working with UNICEF, Save the Children International and Concern Worldwide.
Integrated Safe Motherhood, Newborn Care and Family Planning
Integrated Safe Motherhood, New born care and Family Planning project was to support the GoB's MOHFW Health, Nutrition and Population Sector Programme (HNPSP) strategy to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and support the attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 in Bangladesh. MaMoni Project was working with the direct support of USAID /Bangladesh to improve people's health in Bangladesh through the activity by investing people objective, health project Area of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Framework. The goal of this project was to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes in Sylhet and Habiganj. Achievement of this goal contributed to the SO for USAID's population and health project, to reduce fertility and improve family health. The overall objective of this activity, therefore, was to increase the practice of healthy maternal and neonatal behaviors, including FP, in a sustainable and scalable manner. While there was no explicit FP MDG, World Bank had agreed to support Bangladesh's efforts to reduce maternal and infant mortality by increasing the number of contraceptive users. MaMoni contributed to that goal by increasing knowledge and providing access to modern methods of contraception to all Married Women of Reproductive Age (MWRA) in Sylhet and Habiganj. The lead partner of MaMoni in Bangladesh was Save the Children International (SCI). SCl/B was responsible for managing MaMoni programme in Bangladesh. The programme was implemented in seven Upazilas of Sylhet district and all Upazilas of Habiganj Districts by two national NGOs, Shimantik and FIVDB. SCl/B provided financial, technical and managerial support to these two partners. A third partner ICDDR,B provided some selected technical assistance and was responsible for the project's baseline and endline surveys. The project worked to increase knowledge, skills, and practices of healthy maternal and neonatal behaviour within the communities. Health Workers regularly visited households of the community to ensure proper service delivery. They worked to identify pregnant women and newborn children to provide household level client services. MaMoni project also provided essential maternal and neonatal health and family planning services along with mobilizing community action and strengthening GoB and NGO partners capacity building.
Maternal, Neonatal and Child Survival
To facilitate the Community Based Activities of Integrated Maternal, Neonatal and Child Survival (MNCS) interventions, one of the special programs of FIVDB had been implemented since February 2011 to October 2012 with the support of AusAID and UNICEF. The project was designed to address 4th and 5th of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and aimed to reduce maternal, neonatal and child deaths and improve the health of mothers and newborns. The program was planned for 40 Unions of 5 Upazilas (Dakshin Sunamganj, Jamalganj, Bishwamverpur, Dowarabazar and Chattak) under Sunamganj district by FIVDB. The main objective of the project was to improve the health care practices and increase care seeking behaviour of communities and utilization of neonatal, child health and nutrition services by families, particularly poor and secluded communities, who live under the coverage area of MNCS project. Additional support with GoB outreach centers had been extended by staff members and promoters of MNCS project which has contributed to significant increase in ANC and PNC services including performance of satellite clinics and EPI sessions. At household levels, dry wrapping, delay bathing, breast-feeding within one hour after childbirth and other good practices have been increased as well. Under this project, 45 midwives and 45 village doctors were trained and they work to ensure a better and a safe life for the villagers. Activities like Counseling Visit, Regular Household Meeting, and Courtyard meetings proved to be very helpful in this regard.
Community based Midwifery
The James P Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH), BRAC University is presently leading the Community based Midwifery Diploma Program in partnership with six non-governmental implementing partner organizations (IPOs). In this program students are enrolled from remote and underserved areas with high maternal and neonatal health needs, build their capacity through a 3 years Diploma in Midwifery program and deploy trained midwives in their respective communities upon graduation. The objective of the program is to increase coverage of quality MNH services through the development of maternal and neonatal health competent and compassionate CMWs and facilitate their availability in the communities, especially in the underserved rural and urban areas. The 36 months (3 years) Diploma in midwifery is a full time competency based study program. Total theory hours are 1784, and lab hours 3016 (37 percent time for theory and 63 percent for lab. and practice).
Sanitation, Hygiene Education and Water Supply
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) supported the government of Bangladesh in reaching 30 million people with improved sanitation, hygiene education and safe drinking water. The Bangladesh Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) and UNICEF jointly implemented the Sanitation, Hygiene, Education and Water supply (SHEWA-B) project in Bangladesh with contracted Field Agencies since February, 2007. The said programme emphasizes to ensure sanitation services to the hardcore poor at program areas.
Adolescent Reproductive Health
Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) developed an innovative behavior change communication package for adolescents based on issues and challenges they encounter with during the adolescence period with the support of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in order to provide proper idea and knowledge on adolescent reproductive health and help develop their life skills. FIVDB successfully implemented the 11 month long project titled Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) Project in Sylhet City Corporation (SCC). Primary Stakeholders of the project were non-schooling adolescents of Khadimpara UP and Students of Syed Hatim Ali High School, Shahjalal Upashahar High School under city corporation area. ARH team organized Life Skills Workshops (LSWs) to provide proper idea to adolescents on physical and mental changes that take place during adolescence period so that they can guide themselves to the right way. The project had a toolkit of materials to guide Life Skills Workshops and other community-level activities. The toolkit included a series of four ARH information booklets with accompanying videos on Puberty, Relationships, Risky Behaviors including HIV/AIDS, and Marriage and Family Planning; and a series of comic books. Prior to the training workshops, parents were sensitized about the nature of the addressed issues.
Nutrition Programs
Suchana
Suchana is a multi-sectoral nutrition program that aims to achieve a significant reduction of stunting amongst children under two years of age. In response to the multidimensional challenges of malnutrition, the program adopts an integrated approach of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions to prevent chronic malnutrition within the critical 1000 days from conception until a child reaches its second birthday. The program targets poor and very poor households with women of reproductive age (15-45 years) or adolescent girls. The project is gradually being implemented in 04 cohorts and each cohort is directly served for 03 years. During the reporting period, FIVDB Suchana was working with the first 3 cohort of beneficiaries which counts 59521. The total expenditure of FIVDB Suchana amounts to more than 15 crores (BTD. 15,31,90,442) during the reporting period. The project is working on 07 Upazilas of Sylhet district: Companiganj, Dakshin Surma, Gowainghat, Jaintapur, Kanaighat, Sylhet Sadar & Zakiganj.
Feed the Future
The Feed the Future Bangladesh Nutrition Activity (BNA) is designed to improve the nutrition and health of children under 5 years of age, pregnant and lactating women, and adolescents (10–18 years old) in the Zone of Influence (ZoI), which comprises 21 districts in Barishal, Dhaka, and Khulna divisions, and the Zone of Resilience (ZoR), which includes Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban. BNA uses two-pronged approaches— Market Systems Development (MSD) and Social and Behavior Change (SBC)—to introduce catalytic, scalable interventions and promote doable behaviors through local actors and systems that will sustainably improve nutritional outcomes. BNA is targeting three key entry points for nutrition: consumer behaviors, supply chains, and environments. Our approach considers explicit and implicit consumer and private sector motivations and employs facilitative, market-driven, and consumer-oriented tactics to drive sustainability. Further, we consider the needs of women and adolescents so that interventions are gender-sensitive and promote shifts in social norms, particularly where gender and age inequality affect nutrition and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) behaviors and outcomes. BNA targets demand, supply, and the overall environment for nutritious foods and WASH products while strengthening the role that women and adolescents play as decision-makers and change agents in the ZoI and improving their nutrition and WASH outcomes. BNA is being implemented by Abt Associates partnering with Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM), Friends in Village Development Bangladesh (FIVDB), Jagorani Chakra Foundation (JCF), International Development Enterprises (iDE), and the International Potato Center (CIP). It is a five-year project starting from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2023. The project has already reached the number of beneficiaries targeted which is male28250 and female 28250. The project is actively involved with the Govt: Upazila Nirbahi Officer, Women's Affair’s Officer, Secondary Education Officer, Agriculture Officer & others. LGED: Upazila & Union chairman, local members, DPHE: Upazila & Union chairman, local members, and non-GoB actors such as BRAC, ASA, Proshikha, SDS & others.
School Feeding Program
The School Feeding Program is one of the important measures, taken by the Government of Bangladesh to achieve the commitments towards primary education. Recently Directorate of Primary Education (DPE), under the Ministry of Primary & Mass Education (MOPME) started its School Feeding Program in Poverty Prone Areas with 1.2 million primary school children expected to receive fortified biscuits. FIVDB proposes to implement the ‘School Feeding Program for Poverty-Prone Areas’ in two upazila under the district of Lakhai Habiganj & in Dharmapasha Sunamganj with financial and technical assistance from Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) and World Food Program (WFP). FIVDB, through this proposed project, intends to implement some activities to address the problems of food insecurity and malnutrition among the poor students, of non-school going children, dropout and low attendance, low attentiveness of children in their session. The project will engage all students of 266 primary schools including Govt. primary schools and Ebtadyee Madrasha. The project is aimed at distributing nutritious foods as midday meal in the government primary schools. The intervention is undertaken jointly by DPE and WFP. FIVDB is implementing the project at field level. There are a series of activities carried out round the year by the project crews. This report manifest some of the notable activities and achievements as well.
FIVDB Health Program
during the decade of 1980s
Over the years of 1986 to 1987 the Health Programme of FIVDB underwent a complete review which resulted in the completion of a three year proposal in mid 1988. This aimed firstly to incorporate FIVDB's objectives in self-reliance through organisational building into health care and secondly to address the changing needs in health in underserved and destitute areas with the establishment by the government of health centres and a mass immunization campaign. The programme was made up of three components: 1. Community Health Education. 2. Perinatal Care Education and Improved Delivery Care. 3. Support to Governments Immunisation Campaign. The objectives of the Health Programme were: 1. To facilitate the process of improving knowledge in and awareness of the present health/nutritional status of village communities; 2. To establish trained village health educators (VHE's) and so develop a community based health education resource; 3. To promote usage of Government health facilities and services through grassroot organisation and demand creation; 4. To support the Government's Immunization Programme (EPI); 5. To establish trained Traditional Birth Attendents in the community.