Vol. 12, Special Issue 8 (2023)

Author(s):
Iffat Ghani and Muzamil Jan

Abstract:
Mothers play a vital role in the growth and welfare of their children. Since she is the primary caretaker for her children, this care is largely influenced by her knowledge and comprehension of fundamental nutrition and child health. It has also been observed in many studies that there is a positive link between caregiver’s nutritional knowledge and child nutrition outcomes and that her education is vital to how she raises her children. Moreover, healthy eating habits that are formed in childhood keep a variety of diseases at bay, and they continue to develop into adolescence and adulthood. Healthy infancy therefore guarantees healthy adulthood. With this intention an educational intervention was conducted district Budgam of Kashmir region after identifying the gap areas. A sub sample of 200 underprivileged women were randomly selected from four blocks of district Budgam, with 50 sample beneficiaries from the same sample population of each sample block. Intervention was provided by the investigator by preparing and using module keeping in view their effectiveness and the level of understanding. To assess the effect of Intervention the data was again collected from the same sample beneficiaries (200 women beneficiaries) to whom intervention was provided earlier. It took almost four weeks in collecting the post intervention data and analyzing it. After the analysis of post intervention data in identified gap areas of childcare and nutrition there was a significant (p<0.00) increase in level of nutritional knowledge among the target groups in almost all identified variables. The increase in level of knowledge was mainly due the effectiveness of intervention with mixed approach, selection of module, presentation and techniques used during the process of intervention. Use of local audio-visual aids and participatory techniques in addition to the context-based modification of information also led to increase in motivation and interest of participating women in sharing contemporary knowledge in the field.