Jyoti will help to educate other mothers

Jyoti has two young children, her 2 year old daughter and her 8 month old son. Jyoti has been married for 3 years to her husband, who earns about 4,000 rupees ($80) a month. Jyoti, her husband and their two children live with her parents-in-law and their children.

Jyoti recently heard about a “Mother-Baby” class offered at an organization’s nearby Health and Community Outreach Center, and eagerly went to inquire about joining. Every other week, she brings her son for a class with other mothers with babies aged 0-12 months. At these classes, Jyoti and the other mothers participate in interactive discussions led by local specialists on a wide range of topics designed to improve their understanding of their children’s nutritional, developmental, health-related, emotional, social and family-related needs. The mothers and their children also engage in hands-on activities – practicing cooking cheap but nutritious foods to feed to their children, taking fieldtrips to the local government hospital for routine immunizations, etc – to further enhance their understanding of concepts.

In Jyoti’s slum community, superstition, misinformation and detrimental cultural practices (such as female feticide and denial of medical care/adequate nutrition to girl children) abound and can negatively influence the way parents raise their children. For this reason, it is even more valuable for Jyoti to be attending this class with her child, and she has already spread the word to several other mothers from her community who have also expressed an interest in joining.

Slowly but surely, by empowering Jyoti as a confident, capable mother, the entire community will begin to change.