The children are getting fidgety. The suspenseful music blaring from the speakers near a small makeshift stage on the playground of their primary school in Samsa Tarahar village, Bahraich district, Uttar Pradesh, adds to the excitement as they eagerly await the arrival of Salman, the magician. As parents, the village pradhan, and other residents—men and women, young and old—settle down behind the rows of children, a sudden silence falls. All eyes are riveted on a snazzily dressed man wearing a long, flashy red and gold cape with a matching turban, making a dramatic entrance from behind a curtain.” Do you know there is another magician like me who lives in your village? How many of you know her and want to meet her?” Salman asks. As the audience responds enthusiastically, he waves the wand in his hand, mumbling some magical words. Just as the music reaches a crescendo, a woman, simply dressed in a cotton sari, stands up from the audience and makes her way to the front of the stage. Pointing to her, he announces, “This is Shashi Devi, the didi who makes your illnesses vanish with her magical vegetable plants from her nursery.

Her saplings are chemical-free and full of nutrients. The health of those who have set up poshan vatikas (nutrition gardens) in their homes with her saplings has vastly improved—just like Shashi Didi’s family. For those who haven’t yet experienced this magic, all you need to do is get vegetable saplings of your choice from her and reap the health benefits.” While the magician’s deft weaving of magic tricks with health and nutrition messages has successfully raised awareness and curiosity about Shashi, she is not the only one creating magic. Ever since 24 women from marginalised communities, like Shashi, in 24 villages across four blocks were trained to become vegetable nursery entrepreneurs under the Aga Khan Foundation’s Poshan Prerna and Aspirational District Programme, they have been sowing multiple seeds of health and empowerment—both within and beyond their villages—thanks to their nurseries. Initiated to address the health and economic challenges faced by rural families in Bahraich, the programme, implemented with support from IndusInd Bank, has not only created new income opportunities for these women but also improved their health.

In fact, these nursery entrepreneurs are proving to be lifesavers for other women as well. When frontline health workers and the AKF team monitoring pregnant women found that Prema Devi, a resident of Balaha village in her third trimester, was anaemic and needed nutritional support, they immediately reached out to the AKF team, as there was no nursery entrepreneur in her village. A direct link was established with the nearest entrepreneur, and high-impact saplings of cauliflower, brinjal, cabbage, chili, tomato, long gourd, bitter gourd, spinach, and coriander—rich in essential nutrients like iron, calcium, and vitamins—were provided to establish a nutrition garden in her backyard. Regular monitoring of her nutritional intake by a proactive panchayat, ASHA workers, ANM, AWW, and the AKF team yielded significant results, including weight gain and an increase in

haemoglobin levels.” Our data indicates a 17.1 per cent reduction in anaemia prevalence among pregnant women in areas where linkages were established between panchayats actively supervising health and nutrition indicators and vegetable nursery entrepreneurs. Increased consumption of iron-rich foods, combined with IFA supplementation, has also contributed to this positive trend,” states Ashok Singh, District Programme Officer, Health. Learning about the nutritional value of saplings and receiving AKF training on organic methods for pest and disease management to ensure chemical-free growth has significantly boosted the entrepreneurs’ incomes as well. Each entrepreneur was provided with 130 trays containing 15,000 saplings free of cost.   According to Raghvendra Singh, the district coordinator for skill development, each woman earned approximately `20,000 over a six-month cycle spanning two seasons, increasing their annual family income by nine per cent—a remarkable achievement for a district ranked as the second most backward in India.  Their achievements are not only making them economically independent but also empowering them to take charge of their own health—conjuring magic one sapling at a time.

(The author is a journalist writing on development and gender. Views are expressed are personal)