Seva Mandir

The Balwadi centers aim to provide a mechanism through which communities can secure the holistic development of their young children without having to compromise on a variety of other important responsibilities – such as earning (in the case of mothers) or receiving an education (in the case off elder siblings). Specific objectives are-

• To ensure the overall cognitive and physical development of children  and  prepare them for school
• To increase community contribution to and demand for quality centre based early childhood care and development.
• To enable caregivers to attend to other important livelihood & educational activities

 

Need: Healthy development of a child is stunted due to various reasons like

• Young children in the rural tribal areas of Udaipur district face a high level of malnourishment-The National Family Health Survey -3 (NFHS-3) 2005-06, data revealed that 44 percent of children under the age of three years were underweight, 34 percent were stunted and 20 percent were wasted. And that 69.7% in the age group of 1-5 years are anemic
• At the same time, poverty and the resultant work burden on parents and lack of resources compounds this problem. Extreme poverty forces mothers to go out and work either in their own fields, or go to the forests for collection of fodder and fuel wood or work for wages as at the NREGA sites
• The health, nutrition and early learning of young children also get compromised because mothers or other caregivers are not always able to give time to young children
• The facilities provided by the State (the Anganwari Centres, run under the Integrated Child Development Scheme) are very badly run, apart from having low coverage and being only three-hour facilities.
• Consequently, young children miss on many important inputs that could assist their cognitive development and give them greater opportunity for making a brighter future for themselves

Our response:

• Running Balwadi centers-Seva Mandir works with local communities to run full day child care centre’s (balwadi’s) in the remote areas. These centre’s cater to children’s nutritional, health and educational needs whilst simultaneously providing parents and caregivers with the time to do other critical activities.
• Capacity Building-Each centre is run by a sanchalika, a local woman who receives regular training through Seva Mandir to enhance her capacity to manage the centre.
• Engaging in dialogue with the community on issues related to ECCD
• Mobilizing communities to address quality issues in government Anganwadi centers
• Linking with external agencies

Current situation:

Currently there are 195 centers running with a total enrollment of 4148 children. Out of this 2100 are boys and 2222 are girls Sanchalikas in these centers continued organizing pre school activities as per the daily schedule.

Impact:

• An increased number of children with access to safe and stimulating day care facilities. – In the 195 centers the total number of children enrolled was 4322.
• Proportion of severe malnutrition among the Balwadi children, has come down by more than 70% from a level of >17.5% to about 5.0%
• Improved nutritional status of the children attending the Balwadi-The percentage of children with standard weight for their respective ages increased by about 33.8% making almost half the children free from any form of malnutrition.
• Cognitive development of the children, including learning of secular values, local culture, hygiene etc. has been taking place to satisfaction of all.
• Although iron deficiency could not be monitored properly, there is anecdotal evidence to show that the problem is being arrested, although magnitude is not certain.
• Enhanced school enrolment rates among the children passing out of Balwadis. Last year in July 10, 363 boys and 413 girls were enrolled in formal schools, 93 girls and 82 boys were enrolled in the Shiksha Kendra (Non Formal Education Centers) from the above-mentioned 195 centers. This Linkage of out-going Balwadi children with various schools/Shiksha Kendra (NFEs) has taken place giving a boost to education of the children. Retention of Balwadi children in these schools (after one year) has also been reported to be as high as 87%.
• Balwadi Centers have enabled more than half the mothers to pursue livelihood activities and/or domestic work as per one study, which is indicative.

 

Future challenges:

• The Sanchalikas involved in the pilot on developing a separate curriculum for the children in the age group 1-3 and 3-5 years are not very comfortable in conducting certain pre school activities. It has also been observed that some of the Sanchalikas who perform brilliantly during the trainings, do not perform so well in their Balwadi centres and motivating such Sanchalikas does appears to be a challenge. The need for regular input and guidance is crucial. This can be achieved through regular input sessions and by providing on site support.
• Similarly, program team members at various levels need to be oriented well enough to provide the support to the Sanchalikas at the Balwadi centre. Training exclusively for the staff involved will be organized and revised checklist for monitoring of the centers has been devised.
• Keeping Sanchalikas motivated enough to continue use of cameras for monitoring of their centers and accept payment in accordance is proving to be an uphill task.
• In many villages, government has opened Mini-Anganwadis and Anganwadis, as a result of which Seva Mandir has closed many of its own Balwari. However the challenge is to ensure regular functioning of these government run centres.