EDUCATED AND CONFIDENT CHILDREN

ChildFund India's early years education programs focus on providing home and centre based quality learning stimulation, positive parenting skills, and skills required to detect potential development disorders through ChildFund-run Balwadis and collaboration with Integrated Child Development Centers.

When children enter formal schooling, we intervene in the following ways:

• Provide financial support to Deprived, Excluded and Vulnerable children.
• Improve learning levels through in-school and out-of-school processes.
• Improve school infrastructure by working with School Management Committees.

As they become adolescents and young adults, the program develops to provide counseling, to mentor, and to empower them with employable vocational, professional and life skill education.

The Context

In the last decade India has made impressive strides in improving children's enrolment in formal schooling and reducing the gender gap in enrolment at the primary level. However, despite progress, access and retention are major issues in post primary education, especially of girls.

Only a fourth of all children in class III can read a class II text fluently, which is a drop of more than 5 per cent over four years. A quarter of children in class III could not recognise numbers between 10 and 99, a drop of 13% over four years (as per ASER 2014).

Often, parents disillusioned by poor learning outcomes send children into labor for extra income or have their daughters married off early.

And despite such findings, early childhood education remains a neglected sector. Most Early Childhood Centers run by the government focus more on distribution of precooked meals and less on providing quality early childhood stimulation.

Research shows that an investment of Re. 1 in early childhood education adds Rs. 3 to the economy in the longer run. Quality early childhood education is linked to success in higher education, better jobs and skills.

How It Works

Home and center based interventions (age 3-5)

In the early years, our interventions foster community-based positive parenting for optimal development of children, to prevent the occurrence of developmental risks, and to create a safe and caring family environment. This is complimented with home-based stimulation, through observations and counseling vital for child assessment. We facilitate parents and caregivers to begin focusing on their child's pre-school education, and build their capacity on child rearing best practices, positive behavior & attitude.

For children aged 3-6, we work through center-based interventions:

• Strengthening Anganwadi / Balwadi Management Committees with increased participation of males, skill training of Anganwadi workers and caregivers.
• Creating linkages between the government's ICDS department, community and preschool centers.
• Initiating innovative, replicable practices, activities and demonstrations including designing child-led indicators to monitor attendance.

Improving access and retention (age 6-14)

ChildFund India is working towards improving children's access to formal education and improving their retention, especially that of girls. We help improve community participation in school governance, strengthening family and community support towards education of children, reducing corporal punishment in schools and providing children with essential life skills to enable them to take decisions affecting their lives.

The highlights of this program are:

• Mainstreaming under-served children in the formal education system and supporting them with resources to perform well in their academic sphere.
• Reducing dropout in high risk areas and strengthening community mechanisms to ensure no child is left out of school.
• Strengthening participation by capturing children's voices along with inputs from community.
• Equipping schools with essential infrastructure.
• Building teacher capacity through training and grade appropriate teaching-learning material.
• Boosting student performance through reading improvement plans, scholarships, libraries, child resource centers, coaching classes, youth resource centers and study circles.
• Develop self-governing and monitoring devices like child wellbeing committees and children's parliaments.
• Improve learning outcomes and quality of education in schools, by working with teachers to improve the classroom transaction process by adopting innovative pedagogy.
• Link families with social protection schemes and help them improve their investment in the health and education of their children.

Providing vocational and life skills (age 15-24)

As children become young adults and prepare to take on bigger responsibilities, their education needs become vastly different. ChildFund helps them become ready for this stage of their life by providing life skills training that eases this transition. Our interventions also empower and equip students with vocational and professional skills.

At this juncture, we focus with more intensity on the higher education of girls from marginalized, tribal and hilly communities through a scholarship programme, helping them take on advanced courses. We also provide vocational training and functional literacy for illiterate women and girls in the community.

Impact and Reach

Currently, ChildFund India's education program covers more than 1900 schools in 1800 villages across 14 states - mostly in tribal, hilly, conflict-affected and remote areas. We impact 250,000 school going and 24,000 non-school going children.

HEALTHY AND SECURE INFANTS

ChildFund India's health based programs ensure underserved children, youth and families have access to quality health and adequate nutrition, educate parents and caregivers about their role in preserving maternal and child health, and help youth gain life skills, practice healthy behaviors, form positive relationships, access essential services, and live free from sexual exploitation and abuse.

ChildFund India's health programs are implemented in 60 districts in 14 states.

The Context

The health and nutrition status of pregnant women have a profound effect on maternal mortality, child survival, children's growth and development. The proportion of malnutrition among children and women in India is among the highest in the world. In India, 58% of pregnant women are anaemic. Early marriage worsens the situation. Nearly half (47.4%) of women aged 20 to 24 are married before reaching the age of 18. Consequently, under-5 mortality in India is 52% while child under-nutrition is 42%. In addition, access to quality health care services and its usage is poor.

In keeping with ChildFund India's integrated life stage approach, our health based programs are delivered at 3 levels:

Our early childhood development efforts are based on the premise that children have the best chance of having a better life than their parents when two things are true: In their first five years, all their needs are met for care, nutrition, health care, stimulation and safety; and their parents ensure all those pieces are in place.

In the early years, ChildFund India's health program focuses on providing adequate nutrition, promoting safe motherhood, protection against life-threatening childhood illnesses, and empowering community to ensure universal access to health.

• Behavior change communication at individual, family and community level via mothers' and community meetings.
• Early identification of undernourished pregnant and lactating women, as well as children to combat severe to moderate acute malnutrition.
• Convergence and partnership with the government's health programs.
• Home based care including visits and follow-ups with caregivers.
• Engaging and sensitizing male members for maternal and child care.

Adolescence is when young people begin to shape their world view, can form healthy behaviors and nurture positive relationships. It is a window of opportunity for them to begin practices that will lead to good health during adulthood.

Providing nutrition, promoting healthy habits, fostering a protective and caring environment, and sensitization and orientation of adolescents continue to be the core components of the program. At this juncture, ChildFund's emphasis is also on school health and sanitation and on adolescent sexual and reproductive health. We work with communities and government for promotion and use of household toilets, hand washing in schools, and adolescent menstrual hygiene.

As the beneficiary group matures, the program focus shifts to providing youth-friendly services centered round reproductive health. ChildFund supports youth to practice healthy behaviors, form positive relationships, access essential services, and live free from sexual exploitation and abuse. Young adults are educated about issues such as early marriage and early pregnancy, family planning, and sexual violence against adolescent girls, while also learning to guard against diseases like malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and anemia.

We organize RTI/STI camps (for reducing sexually transmitted diseases) and ARSH, and work with families and communities to increase knowledge and understanding around the social norms that increase risk for negative health impacts. Equal emphasis is given to imparting crucial life skills.

Annually, our health programs benefit about 2.3 million people. Total 12,780 primary caregivers and 2019 service providers have been trained on child care practices.

In 2014, ChildFund India was able to improve the lives of 105,970 children in the age group of 0 to 5 years, 241,014 children aged 6-14 years and 245,088 children aged 15-24 years. We organized 364 Positive Deviant Hearth sessions and a total 11,776 malnourished children reached normal indicators in follow-up surveys conducted in 2014. An additional 29,017 children shifted from moderate malnourishment to normal.

As a result of our interventions skilled and assisted delivery rates increased from 38.1% in 2009 to 75.3% in 2013.

SKILLED AND INVOLVED YOUTH

ChildFund India's program life cycle is completed only when a healthy, educated child becomes a self-reliant, financially secure young adult who contributes actively to family, community and society. Our Livelihood programs strive to make youth work ready through technical and vocational training, build their life skills involving personal competencies, problem-solving and managing conflicts, effective habits, entrepreneurship, and related skills for long term success in the workplace. The goal of this program is to support youth to achieve improved economic, physical and social well-being, and become catalysts for positive change in their families, community, and country.

The Context

The fast changing global and national markets have created a mismatch between existing skills and skills required to avail the market opportunities. This needs corrective action to align skills of young people with the ever expanding and changing markets. Business acumen and entrepreneurship among young people is critical to generate more opportunities for gainful employment .

The key issues associated with it are Low aspirations among the youth from the tribal/disadvantaged backgrounds in terms of acquiring new skills and often follow their traditional practices, which have lately become economically unviable, presence of large number of unskilled labor in the rural sector and limited employment opportunities for youth with traditional skillsets, youth are not really aware of new skills or entrepreneurship opportunities beyond petty business, tailoring, beauty culture and basic computers, limited employment opportunities based only on academic qualifications alone, lack of entrepreneurship skills to initiate a venture, low access to seed capital for business development, and Low percentage of youth who pass the min. qualification (10th/12th) needed for skill building.

There are three main components in ChildFund India's Livelihood programs.

1. Life Skills Education We recognize that long term, safe, and productive employment for youth is not possible without the appropriate set of life skills to ensure that youth are free from exploitation. Before they go out and become bread earners, we help youth develop critical soft skills needed to manage complex problems in home and work environments. Psychosocial support facilitates them to understand and express emotions in ways that foster safe and fulfilling relationships.

2. Entrepreneurial & Vocational Training There are many steps to reaching the goal of sustainable and secured livelihoods. We work to:

• Alleviate immediate poverty needs of deprived, excluded and vulnerable youth through direct support
• Build the capacity of Community Collectives
• Provide support for higher education, leading to formal sector jobs
• Identify trades aligned with local market demands and impart vocational skills and training to school dropouts;
• Educate youth about their rights and entitlements, how to access the government's social security schemes and opportunities and scholarships available to them.

3. Civic engagement & Leadership Training We mobilize families, communities and local governments to support young people to come together in an appropriate space, collectively reflect on their experiences and share their opinions with others, and plot a course of action that contributes to positive change in their communities. The goal is to empower them to become next generation leaders, spokespersons for the unheard and be meaningfully involved in the betterment of their communities and society. They are involved in activities that build social and leadership skills, such as active contribution in school management, environment conservation, child protection, sports, cultural activities, quizzes & competitions, and community service among others.

We strengthen Youth Collectives, build federations and alliances, prepare youth for emergency response, and advocacy and networking.

Vocational training for girls ChildFund India assists illiterate women and girls in the community to acquire functional literacy, and vocational training. They are also given an opportunity to enhance their knowledge through advanced courses. Trained women are subsequently linked to entrepreneurship activities and helped in securing seed money or loans from banks.

Caregiver security ChildFund also helps caregivers improve their livelihood security so that they have sufficient resources to devote to their children.