Alive & Thrive announces Small Grants Award recipients
April 14, 2010
Alive & Thrive (A&T) awarded grants to eight recipients for the first round of its Small Grants Program. Alive & Thrive is an initiative to reduce undernutrition and death caused by sub-optimal infant and young child feeding practices.
The grants will test innovations for overcoming barriers to improved feeding practices. “The goal is to identify successful and sustainable solutions that can be more widely adopted,” said Kay Dewey, professor at the Department of Nutrition at the University of California-Davis and Chair of the review committee for A&T, the Technical Advisory Group (TAG). “The results can help guide how to promote and support healthy and often life-saving behaviors in the future.”
Several grantees will test various technologies, delivery approaches, and venues for reaching parents with messages on infant and young child feeding and will assess their impact on the adoption of recommended practices. Two projects will evaluate the impact on child growth of interventions that combine the use of micronutrient powders for home fortification of complementary foods with other interventions. One project will study the acceptability and efficacy of a locally available, nutrient-rich indigenous food processed into a cereal for complementary feeding.
The grants will involve seven non-governmental organizations, eight universities, four research institutes, and four hospitals. The research topics, study sites, and collaborating institutions are as follows:
Breastfeeding Interventions
- Assessing the cost and effectiveness of training and supervision of frontline workers on early breastfeeding practices in Bangladesh: Eminence (Bangladesh) and Hanyang University (South Korea)
- Promoting fathers’ involvement in breastfeeding in Viet Nam: Hanoi School of Public Health and the Department of Maternal and Child Health Protection and Family Planning
- Improving breastfeeding practices through cell phone counseling in India: Lata Medical Research Foundation, Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital, Daga Memorial Government Hospital, and Matru Seva Sangh
- Providing peer support through cell phones and group meetings to increase exclusive breastfeeding in Kenya: University of Toronto (Canada), Egerton University (Kenya), and Rollins School of Public Health (USA)
Complementary Feeding Interventions
- Adding micronutrient powders to an integrated food security and nutrition project to further reduce malnutrition in Nepal: Helen Keller International, Micronutrient Initiative, Nepal Technical Assistance Group, and Snehi Mahila Jagaron Kendra
- Reducing infections among low birthweight infants through micronutrient powders, hand sanitizers, and education in Bangladesh: Research Institute at the Hospital of Sick Children (University of Toronto) and BRAC (Bangladesh)
- Increasing protein and micronutrient content of complementary foods through a caterpillar cereal in the Democratic Republic of Congo: University of North Carolina (USA), Kinshasa School of Public Health(DRC), and Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Sante (DRC)
- Partnering with media and a vaccination program to improve infant and young child feeding in Mexico: University of South Carolina (USA) and the Center for Research in Nutrition and Health of the National Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca (Mexico)
A&T issued the call for letters of interest (LOIs) in July 2009 and received more than 400 applications from 65 countries. The Technical Advisory Group evaluated the LOIs using 10 criteria and invited 20 applicants to submit full proposals. The TAG met in December 2009 to discuss the proposals and select the grantees based on their TAG rankings and available funds. The projects funded will be implemented over the next two years. In mid-2010 A&T plans to issue a second call for LOIs for small grants. Updates on the Grants Program will be posted at www.aliveandthrive.org/grants.
The Small Grants Program is managed by UC-Davis, a member of the Alive & Thrive team. Alive & Thrive is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and managed by AED. Other members of the A&T team are BRAC, GMMB, IFPRI, Save the Children, and World Vision. The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) has offered to co-fund two of the studies.