Anganwadis (meaning ‘courtyard shelter’ in Hindi) are public child- and family-care centres across India, set up by the government’s Integrated Child Development Services programme to combat child hunger and malnutrition. Started in 1975 as part of the public health care system, a typical anganwadi provides nutrition and health education, immunisation and pre-school education to children and families located in rural and slum areas.
There are more than one million anganwadis in India, and with 5,000 located in Mumbai, we work with over 1,600 of these centres to support the government’s efforts and help increase their impact.
Building on our mantra, School-Chalo! (meaning ‘Let’s go to School!’ in Hindi), anganwadis are the ideal platforms to provide the building blocks for a child’s entry into education and to work with families in ensuring their livelihoods. We also use the centres as platforms to provide a supportive environment for adolescent girls in the area.
We run a variety of programmes and outreach activities to build on the centre’s model including:
Operational Support
We conduct visits to more than 70 anganwadis a day, covering over 14,000 centres yearly to implement monitoring systems, build feedback from sevikas (teachers) and maditinis (teacher assistants) and identify new methods of operation, working closely with the local government in Mumbai to improve the overall frameworks of anganwadis.
Teacher Training
We implement training programmes for sevikas (teachers) and maditinis (teacher assistants) in the anganwadis to improve and enhance teaching methods, integrate technologies and teaching aides, as well as coach them on the importance of the overall wellbeing of children. We conduct trainings for over 24,000 sevikas and maditinis.
Parent Counselling
We meet with parents in areas around anganwadis, with children who have never attended the centres or dropped out, to encourage them to enrol and to provide counselling sessions on parenting and nurturing a child’s learning progression. We conduct over 1,200 workshops per year, reaching more than 20,000 parents.
KISHORI DEVELOPMENT
We educate adolescent girls on women's rights, health, nutrition, leadership and life skills-based education. Our efforts aim to give them the values and skills to break the long-standing cycles of poverty and discrimination. We conduct more than 1,000 Kishori sessions a year, reaching over 15,000 adolescent girls.