Anganwadis play an essential role in providing basic child care, early childhood education, health care and nutritional care services to the last-mile communities. It has an extensive network across the country with 13.87 lakh Anganwadi centres and mini-Anganwadi centres functioning at the community level. Apart from fulfilling their primary role, AWCs also serve the important purpose of helping women in last-mile communities build agency. The centres provide a place for people, especially women, to come together, socialise, think and provide solutions for social problems, which they would not have been able to do otherwise. Due to their extensive presence and work in the community, AWCs also act as a point of information dissemination & awareness building in the community. AWC’s presence and respect in the community can be harnessed to spread awareness of important legal and social issues that require our attention.
Since 2019, Team Prosahan has expanded its work with over 250+ Aanganwadis (ICDS-Integrated Child Development Services in West Delhi slums) covering over 60,000 migrant young women with critical health information needs and linkages with government schemes in Delhi. Critical social protection laws such as the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 & Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (PWDV) Act are covered in the capacity-building sessions to create awareness about the rights that exist and encourage young girls and women to report intimate partner violence and abuse. A large part of this initiative is aimed at strengthening awareness on child protection, adolescent girl health, menstrual hygiene, and the well-being of young women and pregnant women in the communities.
Read more here: https://protsahan.co.in/our-programs/child-protection-sdg-16/
