Lucky Shakti Leaf x Georgetown RISHI Pilot Project Part 2
Overview
Our first pilot project gave us notable insights into the complexity of anemia in Amritpura and Gopal Sagar Villages. Based on these insights, we decided to involve an additional 100 households in our pilot part 2!
Our Lucky Shakti Leaf Pilot Project Part 2 will span over a year and will include multiple educational workshops on health issues (not just limited to anemia), cooking tutorials for proper usage of the Lucky Shakti Leaf, alternate-day follow-ups, and health camps with local doctors.
Kitchen Gardens Initiative
To continue our work focusing on long-term impact, we are implementing a unique initiative to ensure balanced nutrition in our partner villages: kitchen gardens!
We have begun educating the 100 households on the importance of a balanced diet for future health benefits, and are helping them grow 10 different varieties of fruits and vegetables in their backyards, available for household consumption.
The 10 seeds include:
Tomato
Bottle gourd
Ridge gourd
Bitter gourd
Black-eyed pea
Spinach
Cluster beans
Aubergine
Chili
Coriander
We believe that our new solution of a kitchen garden will help promote the importance of a balanced diet in maintaining a healthy lifestyle!
Incorporating Menstrual Health Education
We are happy to announce that we have intertwined our EcoFemme menstrual health and hygiene project into our Lucky Shakti Leaf Pilot Part 2!
With the help of routine follow-ups from GSVS staff, we aim to help more women understand menstrual hygiene practices by promoting EcoFemme natural cloth pads, as well as providing menstrual health education. We have already reached 90 additional women this summer!
Training Workshop
On September 13th, GSVS, RISHI’s partner NGO on the ground in rural Beawar, Rajasthan, successfully conducted a training with 90 of the 100 Lucky Shakti Leaf Pilot Part 2 Participants.
During the workshop, women learned more about iron deficiency from a doctor, watched an animated training video made by LSL on how to use the Lucky Shakti Leaf, and received products that RISHI helped purchase, including a Lucky Shakti Leaf, a tracking calendar for leaf usage developed by RISHI and LSL, and EcoFemme pads.
The training team demonstrated how the leaf can be used in traditiona daal without any impact on the taste of the food, allowing these women to easily incorporate LSL into their families’ routines. They also demonstrated how to use different EcoFemme menstrual products as part of our menstrual health education initiative!
The participants will report their progress to a GSVS field worker, who will be visiting these women on a weekly basis in their homes to check in and monitor progress.
We are so excited to see all of the moving parts come together successfully and will now continue to monitor progress, analyze check-in data, and brainstorm workshops while overseeing our other projects!