Children up to the age of five years are provided care at Baalwadi

The purpose of baalwadi is to provide care for children from poor families and the children of working women. Baalwadi aims to improve children’s health, reduce child mortality, prepare children for pre-primary education, reduce children’s awareness of untouchability, provide proper nourishment to under-nourished children, offer affection to children, get children immunised, for physical, mental and social development of children. Baalwadis are run for children up to 5 years of age for six hours everyday from eight in the morning till two in the afternoon. Baalwadis are run in appropriate shelters (mostly buildings with one or two rooms), have a play area, have toilets, have arrangement for clean drinking water and adequate provisions for preparing nutritious meals and conducting various activities.

Conducting simple educational activity at Baalwadi

Baalwadi workers (called Baalsevikas) are selected after conducting meeting with the Village Education Committee and community members in a public meeting. All Baalsevikas undergo a seven-days training where they learn about the nutritional needs of children, immunisation, maintaining records, appropriate activities to conduct with children, child health. During the training visits to baalwadis that are already running are also conducted. Two Baalsevikas are appointed to run each baalwadi – one takes care of the record-keeping, attendance, other paperwork and some basic teaching while the other is responsible for preparing nutritious meal, cleaning of the baalwadi. Both Baalsevikas conduct activities for children such as telling stories, playing games, drawing and painting and providing information about birds, animals, vegetables, fruits etc.

Monitoring the height and weight of children at Baalwadi

Health check-ups of the children are conducted by health workers every month and by Doctor once in every three months.

Currently 262 children are attending 11 baalwadis run by Manthan. Manthan workers visit every baalwadi at least twice every month to monitor its running.