How We Work

Our goal is to break the intergenerational cycle of poor health among women and children living in vulnerable settlements. Our interventions are centered around 3 principles — Evidence-based interventions, Scaling through partnerships, and Sustainability.

Evidenced-based Interventions

We follow a data-driven, technology-backed approach to programming, and all of our interventions are grounded in evidence. Our in-house qualitative and quantitative research team, as well as our Monitoring and Evaluation team, process data and analyse the progress and impact of our interventions.

Leveraging technology

Our frontline workers use Commcare, an Android mobile application, to enter, analyse and process data in real time. Using technology has improved data quality, reduced time spent on data entry and calculation, facilitated decision-making, and improved access to data during field visits.

Monitoring, evaluation and research

We routinely conduct baseline and endline studies to measure our impact. Our data is used to both improve our own interventions and to inform public health policy and practice. The SNEHA research team has published articles in national and international academic journals and has presented at conferences across the world.

Using data to determine the most cost-effective interventions

In 2013, SNEHA used data from the ﬁeld to support a decision to shut down some day care centres in Dharavi. These centres were used to serve malnourished children through intensive care and nutritional supplements. The centres were faced with low attendance and high malnutrition levels among the children, and the cost of running the centres did not justify the outreach to just a handful of beneficiaries. We adopted community-based management techniques to tackle malnutrition, which allowed for greater outreach and improved home-based feeding practices.

Scaling through Partnerships

Partnerships are essential to SNEHA’s outreach and scale. We believe in forging strong bonds with academic, corporate, research and other non-governmental entities to maximize our impact.

Governmental partnerships

Our government partnerships are crucial to ensuring the sustainability of our work. We work closely with all levels of government - from public health leaders to police officers, institutions and community-level workers - to build capacity and ensure delivery of quality services. We provide policy and programme expertise to help implement our models in other regions.

Funding partnerships

We partner with corporate houses, domestic and international donor agencies, family foundations, small businesses and high net-worth individuals to deliver specialised public health programs in and around Mumbai.

NGO partnerships

We work with non-governmental organisations and foundations to implement our proven models in other states. We offer technical expertise and capacity building to customise our programs in different contexts.

Research partnerships

We study our data for patterns and trends to improve our interventions and inform public health policy and practice. Our research has been published in national and international academic journals, and our researchers have presented in conferences across the world.

Sustainability

We transition from high engagement to low engagement models over a period of time in order to ensure the sustainability of our interventions. Our sustainability model comprises three stages.

I. Proof-of-concept

The intervention typically lasts between 3 to 5 years, with an initial pilot period. We use rigorous micro-planning methods to obtain buy-in from the community and develop our model based on public health research and baseline surveys.

II. Low-touch model

At the end of the proof-of-concept period, we implement an indirect intervention, in which we build community capacity to demand public services and systems to improve quality of service delivery. This is a low-touch model for about three years, during which we seek to institutionalise our evidence-based model.

III. Hand-off and exit

During the hand-off phase, we monitor public systems while providing training and support as needed.

Society for Nutrition, Education
& Health Action (SNEHA), Mumbai
Behind Building No. 11, BMC Colony
Shastri Nagar, Santa Cruz West
Mumbai 400 054
India

PHONE
+91 9920199188
(During office hours 10 am - 7 pm)

For women and children facing violence
crisis@snehamumbai.org
+91 91675 35765

Mental Health Helpline
Mentalhealthmatters@snehamumbai.org
+91 89769 94777

ACCREDITATIONS