Harvest Plus, Happle Foundation, AgroZee Organic and Z. P. Pune the ‘Hansa’ initiative for school students in association with Pune.

The Zilla Parishad Primary School, Sonori, Taluka Purandar, District Pune included the millet based food for three months. The school mid-day-meal is made from bajra and other coarse cereals. The project started with 300 students from two Zilla Parishad schools and three anganwadi’s in Sonori village. The need to include other nutritious cereals including iron rich Pearl millet in the nutrition diet of the school is being highlighted. Not consuming iron rich foods reduces hemoglobin in children resulting in many diseases like anemia. The health school was set up to ensure that there is a constant supply of nutritious food in daily life as well as health care to make the students aware of what should be the nutritious food in the meal.

‘Hansa’ is a project under which the school will provide iron-rich millets to the students every day for the next three months and the objective is to make up for the iron deficiency in the daily diet. Women’s Savings Groups and AgroZee Organic Private Limited (Millet Manufacturer company) are providing foods like Millets Khichdi, Millet Pulav, Millet Rava Upma/Sheera, Millets Pohe, Millets Ladoo, Millets Cookies, Millet Protein Malt, Millet Crackers, Millet Roaster, Millet Nutribar, Millet Chakali etc. Since India is an agricultural country, we have all kinds of grains grown. This grain, which was used in the past, is now in new use because the nutrients present in these grains are very useful for the growing age and intelligence of the children, so the purpose is to use this supplement every day in the diet of the students and to meet the shortage of regular nutrients required by the body. 

The ‘Health Club’ organised in school had colourful paintings for the students and healthy messages on it so that the students could emulate it. In the daily ‘Mid-Day Mill’ that the students are getting, they asked about the food made from bajra and other cereals, as well as interacted with the principle and the teacher class about whether the mid-day-meal is eaten by the students or not.

HaNSA’s Nutri Pathshala is what HarvestPlus is bringing to the world of nutrition.

The program includes:

• An educational journey for the children through various engaging activities like food diaries, games, etc.
  
• A place like ‘Nutri Pathshala’ for children’s curious minds, where they get all the answers to their nutrition information. Nutri Buddy is a partner in children’s journey to a nutritious and healthy lifestyle
  
• The main objective was to increase the nutritional intake of school children and provide them with a balanced diet. The project is expected to benefit about two million children and under this initiative, foods made from cereals will be included so that the large deficiency of food items such as iron, zinc and vitamins can be compensated from the diet of the students. For the bright future of India, we are ready to implement initiatives in not only Sonori but also in many such schools.
• The goal is to improve the nutrient density of school meals by incorporating biofortified iron pearl millet foods through local supply chains.

Stay tuned for more updates…