Ruby valley is a beautiful rural municipality of Northern Dhading lying at the foothills of Ganesh Himal. The geography of Ruby valley rural municipality is difficult with limited access to roads, inadequate infrastructure and lack of access to market. The cold weather additionally makes the lifestyle tough for people residing in remote Ruby Valley. Usha Tamang, (name is changed) 24-year-old women from Ruby valley rural municipality -1, Nyarchet, has three daughters and lives with her husband Ramesh Tamang (name changed). The youngest daughter is one year old. Her day starts with the household chores and she doesn’t have anyone to help her take care of her children, farming and support her in her household work.
Her husband, a laborer and has no regular source of income, believes taking care of children and household work are primarily not his responsibility and provides no support to his wife. Usha finds no time to care for herself and her health has been poor. She is struggling to provide adequate care to her daughters. They often fall ill. LANN+ project started to form agriculture and nutrition group in 2021 and she was selected as one of the beneficiaries of Nyarchet Poshan Samuha as a group member. When she knew that the project is conducting nutrition awareness sessions for women, she wanted her husband to attend the session and aware about the importance of nutrition for women. Her neighbors who were aware of Usha’s situation, supported her and invited and enforced her husband to attend the session. It was the first session of LANN+ sessions. The Female Community Health Volunteer “Ms. Babita Ghale” started the session with the game “Shakti ko Hidai” (power walk, vulnerability analysis game) for mapping out the status of gender equality among the members participating in the session. The game clearly showed that Usha has been receiving no support in any form of work at house and at farm. The FCHV continued the Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) session on elaborating about gender equality and social inclusion which helped Usha’s husband Mr. Ramesh internalize that he has not been supportive to his wife in any work and has been discriminating her. The neighbors and the members had a common voice in suggesting him to support Usha in household work and rearing children. Although reluctant, he realized his shortcoming and committed to improve on it and take care of his family with love and support.
Initially, it was hard to believe that Usha’s husband will be changed. However, Ramesh is now supporting Usha and household work is assigned between them. He has been helping Usha in household chores, farming and taking care of her and their three daughters. The neighbors have reported the Social Mobilizer that they have noticed a change in Usha’s life after attending the first nutrition session of LANN+ and often see Usha’s husband giving hand in household chores. Now, their daughters fall ill very less after being provided enough care. LANN+ project is being implemented in three rural municipalities of Dhading district from November 2020 to December 2023. The project aims to improve food and nutrition security of people living in the working palikas.
It also targets to provide health and nutrition related awareness by conducting participatory sessions to women of reproductive age groups, particularly mothers to improve their health and nutrition status. This noteworthy result of inviting husbands in the LANN+ session has a longer term impact on improving nutrition status of Usha and her three daughters. It is expected that the LANN+ session will enable group members to change their behaviour and improve nutrition status.