Suaahara Social and Behavior Change Communication Strategy

Suaahara is a 5 year, USAID-funded project designed to improve the nutrition of women and children in 20 districts in Nepal. Suaahara tackles undernutrition by examining the variety of factors that contribute to poor nutritional status including poor dietary intake and poor health status. Healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies is also an important part of the project given Suaahara’s mandate is to reduce stunting among children and anemia and chronic energy deficiency among women.

Suaahara’s social and behavior change communication strategy (BCC)—a multi-level approach that includes the harmonization of interpersonal communication, community mobilization, and mass media—helps the government achieve the objectives it established in its Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Plan.

This SBCC strategy is closely aligned with the Nepali government’s priorities and the National Safe Motherhood Child and Newborn Health Communication (SMNCH) Strategy 2011-2016 and the National Health Education, Information and Communication Center (NHEICC) Health Communication Policy. This Suaahara—wide strategy is based on formative research undertaken by the project, trends in nutrition gleaned from the Nepal Demographic Health Survey, Suaahara’s baseline, and global lessons learned on effective SBCC for nutrition. Once finalized, this strategy will be translated into Nepali, adapted to the different regional contexts, and updated on an annual basis to keep abreast of developments in nutritional priorities.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019

Suaahara SBCC Strategy: Earthquake Emergency Initial Recovery Period

This strategy aligned with the larger Suaahara nutrition project was developed in the wake of the Nepal earthquakes in the spring of 2015. The key points of the strategy were:

• Empower families with the knowledge/ skill an and support they need to practice healthy behavior related to MIYCN in emergency setting including breastfeeding from the impact of untargeted donation or distribution of breastmilk substitutes, the risk of using breast milk substitutes protecting and WASH in the emergency period
• Help families to practice small doable actions that lead the continuation of positive behavior

The primary audience was 1000-day pregnant , lactating mothers and their families specially care takers in 10 districts, and the main message of the strategy was the importance of breastfeeding during the emergency period.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019