Port Blair, March 5: To celebrate ‘POSHAN Pakhwada’ under ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ from March 1 to 16, 2023, a rally was conducted under ICDS (Urban Project), South Andaman on March 1, 2023. The rally was flagged off by the Child Development Project Officer, ICDS (Urban Project), Smti Zarina Bibi. The objective of the celebration of ‘POSHAN Pakhwada’ is to bring to focus on nutrition with the tagline ‘Har Ghar, Poshan Tyohar’. The initiative is about spreading behavioral change and communication (BCC) messages related to maternal, infant and young child care and feeding practices. It also includes other related interventions such as growth monitoring, anemia management, hygiene and sanitation, and so on.

‘POSHAN Pakhwada’ was celebrated on the theme ‘Addressing Nutritional challenges through Food Forestry’ on March 2, 2023 at various Anganwadi Centres under ICDS Urban Project. Under food forestry, distribution of samples of nutrition rich plants to Anganwadi Centres in the Aspirational Districts was carried out under the supervision of Mukhya Sevikas, Anganwadi Workers and ANMs. The main focus of theme was  to reduce the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anemia and low birth weight in children, as also focus on adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers, thus holistically addressing malnutrition.

On March 3, 2023, ‘Yoga for Health’ was celebrated at various Anganwadi Centres under ICDS Urban Project. At AWC Calicut-3, Dr. Karishma Khan highlighted about importance and benefits of yoga. She also demonstrated some Yoga poses such as basic stretching, vrikshasana, trikonasana, padmasana, pranamasana, prasavkonasana, etc.