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ANGANWADI SCHEME
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- What it is: There are more than 13 lakh Anganwadi centers (AWCs) in India, that deliver early education, health, and nutrition services as part of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
- Understanding Anganwadi: Anganwadi is a type of rural child care centre, literally meaning “courtyard shelters”. They arrived in 1975 as part of the ICDS.
- What is ICDS: The ICDS was launched in 1975 to improve Indian children’s health and quality of life. A child born that year could only expect to live to be 51 years old—if they survived past birth, given that the infant mortality rate was 13%. Anemia, malnutrition, stunting, and under-immunization were common, especially among children of poor or marginalized backgrounds. The goal of ICDS was to help feed, educate, and care for vulnerable kids and their mothers. What was then a small-scale initiative became one of the world’s largest integrated early childhood programs.
- National Policy for Children, 1974: In 1974, the Indian government’s department of social welfare launched the National Policy for Children 1974, which outlined the country’s commitment to “provide adequate services to children, both before and after birth and through the period of growth, to ensure their full physical, mental and social development.” Children, the policy made clear, “are a supremely important asset” and would be placed at the center of India’s grand plans for the future. And in 1975, with UNICEF’s help, India launched ICDS with the goal of improving the nutrition, health, and development of children from birth to age six, monitoring and educating pregnant and lactating mothers, and helping vulnerable adolescent girls and women between 15 and 44.
- ICDS and Anganwadis: The ICDS services are offered via 13 lakh Anganwadi centers in India. Every urban or rural community of 400 to 800 people has at least one anganwadi center.
- Work done: In every center, an anganwadi worker (AWW) takes care of women and children, educates the community, and collects health and nutrition data on women and children.
- Structure of work: The AWW is supported by three people: (i) an anganwadi helper; (ii) an auxiliary nurse midwife who provides health services to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and delivers babies; and (iii) an Accredited Social Health Activist, or ASHA, who is a community health advocate and provides services like first aid, special needs referrals, and reproductive health counseling.
- Pre-school services: Many services are delivered.
- ICDS has an impressive reach. In 2017, it delivered preschool services to close to 33 million kids (there were ~ 127 million kids under 5 in India).
- It gave regular food rations to 95 million young children and lactating and pregnant women.
- The preschool curriculum in anganwadi centers is outlined in the ministry’s National Curriculum Framework for ECCE, which aims to “promote early stimulation and play-based, experiential and child-friendly provision for early childhood education.”
- Anganwadi centers are places where kids have fun and learn skills that will lay the groundwork for their entry into formal schooling.
- The ICDS scheme provides pre- and postnatal care for women. Women are encouraged to breastfeed their newborns exclusively for the first six months of life.
- Sadly, the infrastructure of ICDS centers is often very poor, preventing them from delivering essential services. They often lack water, toilet, and electricity facilities, as well as little in the way of play materials, all of which resulted in a “lack of faith among the beneficiaries.”
- Govt. trying to improve things: The Indian government is experimenting with some possible solutions for ICDS, including piloting apps and other digital platforms to ease the burden of data collection for childcare workers. A country-wide pay raise for anganwadi and ASHA workers, and increased social security benefits were announced from 2018-19. But ASHA and other wants a regular monthly salary, and not incentives-based payments.
- State subject: In India, public health is a state subject, but the National Health Mission (NHM) is a central scheme that helps all states.
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