‘Iron is wealth women must invest in’

DSM’s campaign Streedhan aims to increase awareness of anaemia

A sustained campaign on social media has, for the last one month, been slowly working towards raising awareness of iron deficiency in women in India.

Titled Streedhan, the initiative was launched by DSM India, a Dutch company, on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp. The campaign has been promoting the consumption of iron-rich diet in collaboration with celebrities.

Alok Kohli, business director, DSM India, was in Mumbai last week to talk about the campaign, which is part of the company’s CSR initiatives. He said the campaign was started as India has among the largest cases of malnutrition in the world.

“One of two Indian women has anaemia. This campaign is aimed at creating awareness amongst the urban Indian women who don’t even realise that they are suffering from it. Also, according to the fourth National Family Health Survey, over 50% Indians eat an unbalanced diet. Most hard hit are women, and female adolescents have a higher prevalence of iron deficiency of 31% compared to male adolescents with 12% deficiency,” Mr. Kohli said.

Iron over gold

Streedhan was launched on Dhanteras in October, when gold is considered auspicious. As most of the buyers are women, the company partnered with 50 jewellery stores in the country to start a conversation on women investing in iron in their diet, rather than gold, to tackle the rampant problem of anaemia.

“The jewellery stores were gracious enough to partner with us on this campaign and project iron as the real dhan (wealth) that women need to invest in,” Mr. Kohli said.

DSM also tied up with actors Mandira Bedi and Vidya Balan, author Anuja Chauhan and video jockey Anu Menon, who shared pictures of themselves eating iron-rich food.

Mr. Kohli said several women followed suit and shared pictures of them consuming iron rich food with the hashtags #InvestInIron, #India’sBloodyProblem and #streedhan.

The company also released a minute-long video, which features multiple women dressed in festive wear, consuming iron rich food like almonds, watermelon and pomegranate, corn and fish. The video has received positive and negative reviews for its elaborate aesthetics and has been widely shared.

“The overwhelming response was unexpected but very welcomed by our company as it got women getting interested in knowing the nutritional value of what they eat,” Mr. Kohli said.

Source: Read Full Article