Early Childhood Development

In the first few years of life, more than one million neural connections are formed each second –
a pace never repeated again.

Early childhood development

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is a Government of India program that addresses the needs of children under the age of six years. Since the health and nutrition needs of a child cannot be addressed in isolation from those of the mother, the program also extends to adolescent girls, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. ICDS aims at ensuring child survival and development during this crucial period of life, offering a wide range of services. We work collaboratively with the ICDS structure to support their 6 services – supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-ups, and referral services through different interventions.

Coverage

anganwadi
centers

habitations

(children below 6, pregnant women, lactating women)

blocks

States

Trainings and orientations

Run an awareness drive among ICDS beneficiaries to improve the delivery of services and benefits, as well as to ensure transparency and accountability.
Conduct awareness campaigns with community members, regarding the importance of nutritious diet, immunisation, and access to ICDS services for children, pregnant and lactating women.
Facilitate the formation of mothers’ and monitoring committees in places where they are non-existent. Once formed, conduct meetings and orientations with them to make them aware of their role and responsibilities.
Provide orientations and training to anganwadi workers for better implementation of the program.
Facilitate preparation of annual anganwadi development plans, which are submitted to gram panchayats.

Pre-primary education

Anganwadi plays a crucial role in the early years of a child’s development. Good pre-primary education is important for children’s physical, mental and emotional development and their readiness to enter formal schooling. It also prevents dropouts and repetition in later stages. We focus on pre-primary education at anganwadi centres through the following ways:

Ensure all children above 3 years of age join anganwadi centres and later transition to schools
Conduct capacity building programs for anganwadi workers on early-childhood teaching and development
Facilitate community participation in the anganwadi centers through activities such as attendance monitoring, storytelling, puppetry etc.
Provide teaching learning materials to anganwadi centers to enhance their effectiveness of the teaching-learning process

In the first few years of life, more than one million neural connections are formed each second –
a pace never repeated again.