Anganwadi centres are acting as the first line contact to the community with public health & Nutrition system in India. Currently as per NFHS-4 data 38.4% under 5yrs children are stunted, 21% wasted and 7.5% severely wasted. The datas are not promising when it comes to ANC coverage, prevalence of anaemia and other important statistics that imply the state of maternal and reproductive health and early education as well. Few states report pockets of very high rates of malnutrition among poor & most marginalised communities like Mahadalits including Mushar community in Bihar, tribals of Attappadi and Wayanad in Kerala and Children of Tribal/Tea Garden workers in Assam.
In all these locations, lack of electricity, long power cuts and not to mention inefficient use of available energy is at the centre of problems. In Kerala, better physical and technical infrastructure motivate the parents who can afford to send their kids to private day care centres. In rural Bihar, children visit AWC’s only for meals, if at all they are sent to an AWC. In both states, AWC is not a preferred location for ANC and lactating mothers to avails health services. With AWC’s made the nodal centres for delivery of a host of services by govt, this often negatively affect the plan to positively impact Health, Nutrition indicators of children, lactating mothers and pregnant women resulting in inability of the state to contain malnutrition, dedicate time for outreach and counselling of ANC& PNC cases and adolescent girls, etc thus negatively impacting mother and child nutrition to name a few.
Through this project we intend to introduce energy efficient solution to make Model Anganwadi’s by providing energy efficient solutions that will strengthen the methods of service delivery, improve the overall built environment of AWC and to support AWW’s in better delivery of services (read AWW+Anganwadi Sevika hereafter) - through making better built in facility available in AWC, early education delivery system enhancement, enabling implementation of suggestions in Poshan Abhyan. Strengthening these centers will directly benefit health, nutrition and education indicators. Government run Anganwadis are facing a huge drop in enrolment due to lack of good facilities and slow acceptance of technology in comparison to the privately run Anganwadis. Through the creation of Model Anganwadis, this project aims to provide sustainable solution that could enable Anganwadi workers to provide better services and make the services more accessible.
Approach of the project include:
- Infrastructure renovation to ensure all AWC’s are sustainable energy efficient facilities with natural lighting and ventilation, Wash, free play spaces etc.
- Early education enhancement using digital learning tools.
- Aid Anganwadi worker with digitized technologies with an aim of improved nutrition and development of the child as well as of the expecting mothers.
- Ensuring each Anganwadi have access to child friendly learning tools.
- Capacity building of Anganwadi workers.
- Community engagement and the creation of a community-friendly atmosphere
For more details about the program, write to info@doctorsforyou.org
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