[ti:Child Welfare in India Improves as Mothers Participate in Peer Support Groups] [ar:] [al:Health Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]New research in India shows that children eat better [00:04.05]when their mothers have more power, [00:06.20]more education and are able [00:09.51]to move about freely in the communities. [00:12.06]Researchers found that women [00:15.68]who joined a job skills training program [00:18.99]sought more in control at home and in their families, [00:23.89]and children of these women ate more rice and dairy foods. [00:28.94]A program in southern India is called Mahila Samakhya. [00:39.24]It brings women together to form local support groups. [00:44.69]Researchers at the University of Illinois [00:48.70]questioned if and how these groups [00:52.85]affected the women's sense of themselves [00:56.14]and their positions in the family. [00:58.89]Kathy Baylis is an economist at the College of Agricultural, [01:04.29]Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. [01:09.89]She led the study. [01:11.69]Ms Baylis says that before joining the peer groups, [01:16.34]the women knew fewer than five other women who they were not related to. [01:21.85]Ms Baylis adds that many of them did not know [01:26.54]the possibilities for women in work and in family life. [01:30.99]She reads some of the comments from these women [01:34.89]that show this way of thinking: [01:36.94]"Before I was in the peer group, [01:39.34]I didn't know I could stand up to my husband. [01:41.30]I didn't know I could work outside the home or work outside the farm. [01:47.26]I didn't know women were doctors and lawyers, etc., etc." [01:53.67]Experts say 40 percent of Indian children under age five [01:59.02]suffer from underfeeding. [02:01.78]But Ms Baylis says, involvement in the support groups, [02:06.68]led the women to provide better foods for their children. [02:11.08]Researchers visited the homes of those involved in the groups. [02:16.48]They created a simple measuring process. [02:20.88]They brought different size food bowls, [02:24.27]and asked the mothers which size bowls they were using. [02:28.92]"And instead of trying to get people to recall exact number of cups or etc. [02:35.07]that they were feeding their kids, [02:37.06]we went and asked how many of these size bowls did your different kids [02:40.70]get fed of rice and of daal and of various dairy products," said Baylis. [02:45.76]Researches confirmed that the children were eating better [02:49.66]based on the size of bowl the mothers used. [02:52.66]They found that girls especially started eating more. [02:57.46]Ms Baylis says the women also began to resist physical abuse from their husbands. [03:05.27]The women threatened to report the violence of these men unless they stopped. [03:11.57]The study is one of the first to show [03:15.42]the effectiveness of Mahila Samakhya on female empowerment. [03:20.34]The Indian central government established the program in 1995. [03:26.40]A similar program in Bangladesh - SHOUHARDO has also had success. [03:33.26]SHOUHARDO is the Bangla word for friendship. [03:37.56]The non-profit group CARE administer SHOUHARDO [03:41.76]along with the Bangla government and US government's Food For Peace program. [03:48.36]That's all from the Health Report. [03:51.16]Stay tuned for more programme from VOA Learning English. ¸ü¶àÌýÁ¦Çë·ÃÎÊ51VOA.COM