Sujan Lama is one of the community facilitators employed by RICOD to implement the IMCN Project. As a community facilitator, Sujan is responsible for conducting and organizing mothers’ group trainings, organizing kitchen garden trainings, following up with participants, monitoring school support snacks, distributing food to needy families, and much more within the community he serves.
Sujan is not a stranger to this type of work. “I was a volunteer with RICOD before I worked with RICOD,” he says, “I knew about RICOD, what work they do, how they work and I had an interest in working with their office.” He considers himself lucky to have an opportunity like this to serve and impact a community.
“It is fun and meaningful to work in the communities at the village level,” he says as we walk through Lele village. He can’t go more than 50 meters before he is caught up in a conversation with a local resident about anything from work to gossip to cricket.
Sujan has worked with this project from the beginning, about a year and a half now. I asked him what successes he has seen in the community that has so readily adopted him. “So many people have learned about nutrition and better agricultural practices. You can see some of what we teach being done in homes. There is more awareness in the village overall.” He pauses to consider before continuing, “Many people have been given supplementary food just to have enough. School children have been given more nutritious snacks to help them grow. I really want to thank CFGB for the support they are giving to these needy people. I am happy to be doing this work; to be given a chance to help.”
At a local healthy food demonstration event, Anu Dungu, Peer Educator volunteer, and Sushan Lama, Community Facilitator, show how to use locally-available nutritious food to make a healthy lunch called chaat: boiled potatoes topped with fresh tomatoes, carrots, hot peppers, onions and cilantro with a lime juice dressing, and legumes like peanuts or curried chickpeas on the side.
Article by Malcolm McDermond
