We co-convened and co-led the formation of the Bhavishya (“future” in Sanskrit) Alliance, a government-business-NGO effort aimed at cutting in half India’s extraordinarily high level of child malnutrition. We facilitated a three-month, full-time Change Lab involving government officials, company managers, and non-governmental organisation leaders which established the Alliance’s areas of work and way of working. The Alliance is an unusual and important example of tri-sector collaboration in India. It continues to grow and develop.
Bhavishya’s current initiatives aim to reduce malnutrition through:
• Diversifying and improving the quality of supplementary food at local health care centres
• Opening day care centres at construction sites
• Improving personal hygiene through hand washing
• Improving adult literacy along with awareness of health and nutrition amongst tribal women
• Empowering adolescent girls to improve their health and nutrition
• Improving counseling at primary health facilities
What participants had to say:
“Standing on a small hill, looking at sun-set, I asked myself: If I was born in pre-independence era, what would I have done? I recall one of the addresses to [our Lab Team]. While doing business, we cannot close our eyes to millions of people who have no food and thousands of babies that are dying every minute owing to malnutrition. This is not a simple problem that can be nailed through a fishbone or pareto analysis… it is the consequence of a larger systemic failure that includes all… the government, communities & the business world. And it will take all the players to shift the current reality.” -Member of Lab Team
“I am clearer than ever that all the challenges we discuss as being ‘in the field’ are in fact present in this room. If we want to know why communities are hostile to healthcare workers, then the answer is in the room. If we want to know why care programmes in the past have been unsustainable, then the answer is in the room. If we want to know why there is low trust in the malnutrition system between different actors, then the answer is in the room. And if we want to change the system then we must also change what is in the room.” -Indian Facilitator