NYDHEE believes that good health and adequate nutrition are necessities that enable citizen to realize their full potential to lead a life with dignity, pursue opportunities, and build resilient futures. Yet for many tribal and marginalized households, poor nutrition, limited access to quality health services, gender inequities, unsafe migration, and inadequate awareness continue to reinforce cycles of vulnerability and exclusion.
Our approach recognizes that health and nutrition outcomes are shaped not only by healthcare services, but also by safe food systems, livelihoods, knowledge, social norms, and the effectiveness of community and public institutions. We therefore work with women, child, adolescents, youth, migrant households, frontline workers, and local health institutions to strengthen community capacities, improve last-mile access to services, promote positive health and nutrition practices, and foster collective action that enables vulnerable communities to lead healthier and more resilient lives.
Promoting Reproductive, Maternal, and Adolescent Health
NYDHEE works to ensure that women, adolescent girls, and young people can exercise their right to informed, equitable, and dignified health services. Many rural and tribal communities continue to experience barriers arising from inadequate information, restrictive social norms, limited agency, and uneven access to quality healthcare services.
Our interventions promote reproductive and menstrual health, maternal care, and adolescent well-being through community-led awareness, peer learning, and behaviour change processes that challenge taboos and strengthen informed decision-making. By improving last-mile access to health services and strengthening convergence with public systems and frontline workers, we enable vulnerable populations to adopt healthier practices and seek timely care throughout critical stages of life.
Nutrition Security Through Nutri-Gardens and Livestock
NYDHEE promotes nutrition-sensitive and agroecological food systems that improve dietary diversity and enhance household nutrition among tribal and marginalized households. We recognize that malnutrition is often rooted in limited access to diverse foods, declining traditional food systems, and inadequate availability of nutrient-rich diets throughout the year.
Through community-led nutri-gardens, families cultivate diverse seasonal vegetables using local seeds, community seed systems, and indigenous practices that support year-round access to nutritious foods.
Complementing these efforts, we promote small livestock systems such as goatery and backyard poultry through improved and low-cost packages of practices that enhance productivity, improve access to protein-rich foods, and create additional livelihood opportunities. By integrating food production, local knowledge, and nutrition practices, we help households reinforce dietary diversity, and food security.
Strengthening Occupational Health & Safety (OHS):
NYDHEE recognizes that informal workers and migrant households often face disproportionate health and safety risks arising from hazardous working conditions, limited awareness of occupational hazards, and inadequate access to health and social protection systems. These vulnerabilities are further compounded during migration cycles and periods of crisis.
Our approach promotes occupational health and safety awareness, preventive practices, early risk identification, and community-based monitoring through action research, health screenings, safety education, and facilitation of access to public health and social protection services. By deepening the capacities of frontline workers, community volunteers, and local institutions, we seek to reduce vulnerabilities, improve health outcomes, and support safer and more dignified working conditions for migrant and informal workers.
Community-Led Nutrition Advocacy and Convergence
NYDHEE believes that sustained improvements in nutrition require informed communities and responsive local systems working together. We therefore promote community-led nutrition action through food and nutrition festivals, health days, cooking demonstrations, mother support groups, and behaviour change processes that encourage improved dietary practices, hygiene, and care behaviours.
Our approach enables last-mile convergence by working closely with Panchayati Raj Institutions, frontline workers, and ICDS functionaries to improve access to key government programmes such as POSHAN Abhiyaan, Janani Suraksha Yojana, and Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Days (VHSNDs). By fostering community ownership and institutional convergence, we strengthen service delivery systems and support more sustained improvements in food and nutrition outcomes among children, women and adolescents facing barriers to services.
Towards Healthier and More Equitable Futures
Our work seeks to ensure that poor health, malnutrition, and limited access to essential services do not constrain people’s ability to learn, work, care for their families, and participate fully in community life. By improving dietary practices, strengthening community capacities, and enhancing the responsiveness of local systems, we strive to create conditions in which women, child, adolescents, migrant households, and marginalized communities can lead healthier and more secure lives.