MAMTA-HIMC

Mamta Health Institute for Mother and Child (MAMTA-HIMC) is a public health organisation that runs research and programmes to strengthen health systems and improve health for women, children, adolescents and communities. Paediatrician Dr Sunil Mehra founded it in December 1990 as a small clinic in Tigri, an urban slum in Delhi.

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It has since grown into a national organisation working on maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, nutrition, non-communicable diseases, mental health, HIV and TB. It describes its approach as combining new research methods with carrying out public health programmes, often in partnership with central and state governments. It is registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, holds FCRA registration, and has special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Headquarters: New Delhi, Delhi, India

Major Areas of Work

• Health systems and communities: Building resilient health systems and healthy communities, including training, capacity building and technical support for government health programmes.

• School health and wellness: Bringing health and wellness into schools and other learning spaces, with a strong focus on adolescents.

• Climate and health: Helping health systems prepare for climate change, including its effects on maternal and early childhood health.

• Nutrition: Improving nutrition for children, mothers and families through supplementation, counselling and nutrition education.

• Equity and empowerment: Strengthening communities through work on sexual and reproductive health and rights, harmful gender norms, and access to care for people living with HIV and TB.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Centre of Excellence for Adolescent Health and Development: A centre at Sir Sunderlal Hospital, Banaras Hindu University, run with the National Health Mission, Uttar Pradesh, that provides counselling and outreach to adolescents and carries out research on adolescent health.

• Healthy Schools Program: Delivered with Arogya World in government schools across Rajasthan. It uses interactive activities with middle school students, particularly tribal and rural adolescent girls, to build nutrition literacy and healthy habits and to prevent diabetes.

• Bowl of Growth: A PepsiCo Foundation-supported nutrition programme in rural Pune and the urban slums of Mumbai. It provides nutrition supplementation to children with mild acute malnutrition and nutrition education to their parents and caregivers.

• Unite to ACT: A Global Fund-supported TB project in which Mamta led community engagement in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat as a sub-recipient with REACH, built around a TB Champion model.

• Unnati: A sexual health education and awareness project with Evonith Steel in villages of Wardha and Buldhana districts in Maharashtra. It works with girls, boys, women and men, and runs regular health camps.

• Regional Resource Centres: In partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Mamta has managed the Regional Resource Centres for Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, which provide technical support to government health programmes.

Impact

Mamta states it has worked in public health for more than 30 years, ran a COVID-19 relief response across 20 Indian states, and has conducted a national training programme for government officials and health service providers across 25 states. Partner testimonials on its site cite more than 5,000 children reached through Bowl of Growth over three years. They also cite more than 1,00,000 students in 1,083 government schools in Rajasthan reached through the Healthy Schools Program, which Arogya World describes as part of a project with a total reach of 550,000 children. The White Ribbon Alliance gave it the Global Safe Motherhood Award for its safe motherhood work.

Partners

• Government: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, National Health Mission, and the governments of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

• Multilateral and bilateral agencies: WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, USAID, Sida (Sweden) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

• Foundations: Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, PepsiCo Foundation, Medtronic Foundation, HCL Foundation, HT Parekh Foundation and American Jewish World Service.

• Implementing and technical partners: Pathfinder International, PSI, Population Council, John Snow Inc., Plan India, PATH, EngenderHealth, Noora Health, Frontline AIDS, REACH and SAATHII.

• Academic partners: Karolinska Institutet, Lund University, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of Melbourne, Oregon State University, International Institute for Population Sciences and Banaras Hindu University.

• Corporate partners: Oracle, Nestle India, Philips, Reckitt, Vedanta, Maruti Suzuki, H&M, Gap Inc. and Evonith Steel.

Leadership

• Dr Sunil Mehra, Founder and Executive Director

Mamta suits people who want to work in public health at scale. The work ranges from community outreach and counselling to research, training and technical support for government health systems. Its programmes cover maternal and child health, adolescent health, nutrition, NCDs, TB, HIV, and climate and health, so staff can gain experience in several health areas and across many states. Projects often run with government departments, universities and international agencies, which builds skills in partnerships, programme management and evidence generation. It fits public health professionals, researchers, programme managers and field staff who want to pair community-level work with changes to health systems.