Good Food Campaign: An Approach to Raise Awareness
Shanjida Kawser RituShanjida Kawser Ritu
Everyone knows that to be healthy, you must eat good food and have healthy habits. Our daily physical activity can change our food needs. Despite knowing these things, we fail to achieve good health. Because we cannot identify the exact food we need. The community that suffers the most dilemma in choosing right food is the Readymade Garments workers.
Bangladesh being the second largest exporter of apparel in global market, about 4.4 million people are working in this sector. A large proportion of these workers are women who are at risk of health because of their lifestyle. Association for Community Empowerment (ACE) recognizes the need to promote good food and health among these RMG workers. The organization took the chance to implement an innovative awareness raising campaign among the RMG workers. This joint venture with Auchan Foundation, France and Mati Industries Ltd took place in five different export-oriented factories from 26th October 2024 to 31st October 2024.
The main objective of this campaign was to create awareness of healthy and nutritious foods among the RMG workers in these five factories of Ashulia and Gazipur where thousands of workers’ work. For strengthening their capacity for more production in the workplace, this campaign will boost their knowledge and awareness on some regular foods and the overall process of hygienic cooking. For this we needed activities that will attract the workers to perceive the message.
We chose different channels to convey our message and designed our campaign activities accordingly. We developed promotional material (Leaflet, Festoons, Posters, Hand placards etc) with health messages and distributed among the workers and the staff of the factories. A promo video containing knowledge of healthy and local food was on the play the whole time.
Folk songs are the common media to reach out to the mass audience of Bangladesh. Keeping that in mind we added a Baul song to our activities, interpreting the importance of nutritious food. It served as both entertainment and a medium to blend health awareness into their familiar words. And for those workers who could not attend on the field, we played pre-recorded health message using PA system of the factories. The volunteers paraded through each floor with hand placards to aware the workers of the campaign messages.
To attract the crowd Ronopa and Mascot performance was arranged who roamed through the factory with placards. Workers and staff crowded around them and took photos as they interacted with them. A 360-degree photo booth was placed in front of the tent to entertain the participants. This piece of activity received a great response as assumed. The participants came up with their unique pose and posture to capture. A worker from cutting section at Shafi Processing Industries Ltd, Selina Khatun said, “I have seen many such videos on Tiktok. I wanted to make such videos. I saw your arrangements while entering the factory in the morning. So I came here when I got an opportunity during work. I even tried to score a goal in your football.”
However, the main attraction of the campaign was Game and raffle draw which made the workers and staff more curious of the campaign. Mini Golf and Mini Football games were arranged on the factory premises. The female participation in these activities was very significant. The winners got seasonal fruit and healthy food items as a prize. The raffle draw winners had a food package as prize, which included Rice, Lentil, Oil, Flour, Mixed nut etc. One of the raffle draw winner from Torque Fashion Ltd was Maksuda Begum. She was overwhelmed with joy when her name was announced. She said, “I can’t believe I won the lottery. I am very happy! The children at home will be dancing with joy when they see this. All the item in this package are essential.”
This Collaboration, which drew from a great deal of direct knowledge of food education programs, was expected to be nothing short of transformative for the RMG workers, who represent the core of Bangladesh’s economy, whose welfare is essential to country’s development. The response of the factory management, workers and staff was very cooperative, which helped to land the campaign smoothly. Their reaction and spontaneity seem to indicate that we have succeeded in our aim.
