ENRICH Project reaches over 4 lakh people
Enhancing Nutritional Status to Improve Maternal and Child Health (ENRICH) project of World Vision Bangladesh has completed its journey of five years today through its closeout event.
The event took place at La Vita Hall room of Lakeshore Hotel in Dhaka.
ENRICH Project has been a multi-sectoral and integrated consortium project implemented in four countries of the world, namely Bangladesh, Myanmar, Kenya and, Tanzania, which has been funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC). In Bangladesh, the project was implemented by World Vision Bangladesh along with Nutrition International (NI) and HarvestPlus Bangladesh (H+) as partners. In aiming to reduce maternal and child mortality through improving their nutritional status, the project reached 4,04,343 direct beneficiaries in 298 villages under five upazila of Thakurgaon.
Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, Additional Director General (Admin), Directorate General of Health Services, was present as chief guest in the closing event.
Dr Md Khalilur Rahman, Director General, Bangladesh National Nutrition Council (BNNC), Dr SM Mustafizur Rahman, Line Director, National Nutrition Services, Institute of Public Health Nutrition (IPHN), Dr Md Khalequzzaman, Director-Research, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), and Joseph Sebhatu, First Secretary (Development), High Commission of Canada to Bangladesh were present as special guests among others.
Moreover, the government officials, different donors, INGO, and national level NGO representatives were also present at the event. Chandan Z Gomes, Senior Director-Operations and Program Quality, World Vision Bangladesh welcomed all the guests with his opening remarks.
A representative from the University of Toronto, the evaluation partner of the project shared the high-level indicator results from the project's end evaluation. ENRICH project head, NI, and H+ Country leads presented the key achievements of the project in the forum. Besides, Dewan Morshed Kamal, Deputy Director-Family Planning, Thakurgaon, Deputy Director-Department of Agriculture Extension, Thakurgaon, and Acting Civil Surgeon of Thakurgaon shared their experiences with ENRICH Project. Two of the project's direct beneficiaries, Md Sirajul Islam and Eti Rani also shared their life-changing stories in the forum.