“I used to feel weak and dizzy constantly,” says Shakuntala Devi of village Ukrimari, Jharkhand, “but after cooking in my iron kadhai (wok) for four to five months, I started feeling much better.” The other members of her Self-Help Group (SHG) nod, and share their own stories of how cooking in iron vessels has helped them improve their eyesight, headaches, joint pains.
It’s February 2019, nearly three years since I joined the team working on the health intervention that helped facilitate the decision of this SHG – and several others across the country – to buy iron kadhais.
A multi-partner intervention anchored by Transform Rural India Foundation (TRIF), it aims to trigger transformation of villages by adopting scientific practices around health and nutrition along with access to quality public health services. To help facilitate such a process, TRIF brings together organizations that are experts in public health as well as livelihoods.
The first step is to work with women in organized rural collectives and develop their knowledge on health and nutrition. Each collective selects a volunteer – called a Change Vector (CV) or ‘badlav didi’ – who is then trained using modules on reproductive and child health, nutrition, and communicable/endemic diseases, developed by a consortium of technical organizations. The CV in turn trains her peers during the monthly SHG meetings.
As part of the team compiling the health modules, I remember working on multiple drafts of the chapter on nutrition: writing about the importance of a balanced diet, green vegetables, how consuming citrus helps absorb iron. And adding this suggested course of action – that women from each SHG buy iron kadhais together and cook in them – in the last draft of the module at the suggestion of the project’s technical lead, Dr. Vandana Prasad.
A few short months after the first round of trainings was completed, we heard stories from the field, beginning in Torpa, a block in Khunti district, Jharkhand. Sanjay Manjhi, a shopkeeper in Torpa town, says, “Usually, I stock just a few pieces, as I would sell a couple every month. But in late 2017, so many women came looking to purchase a kadhai…Over a thousand! I got as many as possible… I sold over 300 pieces!”
In Torpa block alone, at least 1,200 women purchased iron kadhais, while the number across Jharkhand has climbed to 2,300.
The prevalence of anaemia amongst adult women and children is a topic of widespread concern in India. According to the Fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), in 2015-16 over 67% of adult women in rural Jharkhand suffered from anaemia.
