Impact Awards 2018

An Anganwadi worker ensures antenatal and postnatal care for pregnant women and immediate diagnosis and care for new born children and nursing mothers. They administer the immunisation of all children below the age of 6 years. In addition they supervise the distribution of supplementary nutrition to children below the age of 6 as well as pregnant and nursing women. Monitoring regular health and medical check-ups for women and children is one of their key responsibilities. The Anganwadi workers often takes on the role of a teacher and aims to provide pre-school education to children between the age of 3 and 5 years.

Ms Raula has been an Anganwadi Worker (AWW) in her home town of Kaptipada in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district for the past 24 years. In this time, she has served her community with inspiring commitment and perseverance.

She supports one revenue village and four hamlets with nearly 300 households, 84% of which are from tribal communities. She visits each household to provide information and support, and ensures the health and development of entire families, especially women and children. Through her efforts, the women in her community have institutional deliveries and hundreds of children are enrolled in her Anganwadi Centre and flourish in a hygienic and joyful learning environment with wholesome meals. Six malnourished children were also revived. Notably, she has achieved 100% immunisation in her community for the last five years, and 0 infant and maternal mortality in the last decade.

She has facilitated 15 self-help groups with 200+ women members she empowers with financial literacy, and is the community’s go-to person in times of distress. She routinely comes to the rescue of those in need during medical emergencies, often spending out of her own pocket to ensure proper transportation, care and follow up despite inhospitable circumstances.

Accredited social health activists (ASHAs) are community health workers instituted by the government of India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) as a part of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Auxiliary Nurse Midwife is a village level female health worker, who is the first contact between the community and health workers. Both ASHAs and ANWs act as health educators and promoters in their communities. Their tasks include motivating women to give birth in hospitals, bringing children to immunization clinics, encouraging family planning (e.g., surgical sterilization), treating basic illness and injury with first aid, keeping demographic records, and improving village sanitation.

Ms Singh has been an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) in Ambedkarnagar, Uttar Pradesh for 11 years. In this time, she has acquired a well-deserved reputation for her unconditional support to communities she serves. She responds to emergency calls from pregnant women and worried parents so often, that she’s trained her daughters to manage the home themselves when she’s away (their father has migrated to the city for work).

Not only that, she also organises Village Health and Nutrition Days, and has roped in children and young people for increased community engagement across all ages. She is also responsible for increased gender sensitivity in her community due to girl child birth celebrations she began years ago.

She is distinguished in her willingness to go the extra mile, having independently undergone training to acquire additional skills so she can serve her community better. Through routine home visits, extensive rapport building, meticulous care, long-term linkages and follow up, she has been able to support and fulfil the health related needs of 300+ community members including 122 children.

They are paid functionaries. They serve and act as intermediaries between the NGO and the community. Thereby, becoming the key point of contact between social organization and the community. They are intensively involved in the ‘on-ground’ field work and are primarily responsible for mobilizing people, increasing their capacity and access to opportunity and service at the grass root level. Outreach workers work across all thematic areas such as health, education, gender and water, hygiene and sanitation and are responsible for implementation of community programmes.

Mr Majhi started out in Plan India’s programmes as a young boy in the children’s club in his village. There, he learned about various social issues and began his quest for child rights, gender equality and community development. Over the years, he has honed remarkable community mobilisation techniques involving theatre, puppetry and song writing which he has passed on to a cadre of 50 children/youth volunteers he has personally trained.

A certified Trainer on Child Protection by the District Child Protection Unit in Keonjhar, and known advocate for children’s rights, he has capacitated children, young people and their families through interactive workshops and outreach programmes, to establish effective linkages with government schemes and stakeholders. Last year, he conducted sensitisation trainings on sanitation and hygiene for 4,800 community members, health camps for 200 children and orientations on children’s rights for 800 children. He has also been able to prevent three child marriages in the community, and spearheaded initiatives to benefit 54 families in Thakurmunda by way of an Anganwadi Centre.

He is a favourite among the young people and community members who respond to his amiable nature and creative mobilisation – including a Child Premier Football League for girls and boys in 12 villages.

Plan India Community Volunteers are non-paid and influential individuals in the community. They are key stakeholders for the cause supported by Plan India and its partners. They are the active workers and community volunteers who take up multiple roles at the field level. These volunteers play a very important role in mobilising the community for different project needs.

Mr Mohanta is 71 years old, a retired teacher, and among the loudest voices in the movement for children’s rights in the 75 villages of Thakurmunda, Odisha. He has been a Community Volunteer for nine years, and in this time, has established systems and networks to ensure the safety and well-being of children and young people. Among these is an autonomous citizen’s forum that keeps watch for any infringement of children’s rights in the area.

He is a certified Trainer on Child Protection by the District Child Protection Unit, Mayurbhanj, and plays a vital role in sensitising and influencing relevant office bearers and stakeholders to ensure child rights are safeguarded. Last year, he trained 73 village and panchayat level Child Protection Committee members on creating child friendly gram panchayats; oriented 95 School Management Committee members on school development; rescued and rehabilitated 17 children (10 girls, 7 boys) who were vulnerable to exploitation; educated 700 adolescent school children on the negative consequences of child marriage; and sensitised 1,000+ parents on gender equality.

Due to his efforts, the predominantly tribal and backward Thakurmunda block has witnessed a dramatic decline in child marriage and trafficking and near total enrolment at the elementary level.

Youth champions make an enormous contribution to national development; engaging, developing and empowering young and older adolescents GIRLS. They inspire and motivate these young people, building their skills and confidence to succeed.

Ms Singh has been associated with Plan India since 2016, and in this time, has made tremendous efforts to advance girls’ rights in the Patamda block of Jharkhand. A powerhouse at 21 years of age, she is already a noted figure in the community for her dedication to the cause.

Through community meetings, she promotes gender equality, girls’ education, hygiene and sanitation and orients young people and their families on related government schemes and their benefits. She also supports girls and women to access and utilise the formal banking system, helping them create bank accounts, assisting them to secure bank loans for small scale industry, and helping girls enrol in the National Skill Development Centre to build their capacities.

Due to her efforts, 200 households and key government stakeholders have been involved in multilevel awareness campaigns on the negative consequences of and the urgent need to ban child marriage. She has singlehandedly saved girls from early and forced marriage, and continues to mobilise communities and office bearers in her endeavour to ensure that all children and young people, especially girls, can achieve their full potential.

Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) have been designated by law as the final district-level authorities for the care, protection, treatment, development and rehabilitation of Children in Need of Care and Protection.

The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) Thane caters to one of the most populous districts in the nation with an estimated 2.84 million residents, as per the 2011 Census of India. Consequently, the CWC handles notably high workloads of up to 98 cases a day and routinely works with three Commissioners of Police, two Superintendents of Police, and 42 government and non-government organisations.

Due to its efforts, the CWC is linked with a number of agencies and experts qualified to provide support to children across district locations, is able to place children in age appropriate Child Care Institutions, and has also identified suitable authorities for the temporary custody of children bearing in mind their age, needs and safety.

The CWC provides children access to government schemes (Bal Sangopan Yojana, Manodhairya Yojana), and has also facilitated National Savings Certificates amounting to INR 20,000-25,000 for former child labourers. In one case, this was INR 100,000.

The CWC conducts trainings and awareness sessions on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 to build community support and conducts visits to prisons to meet lady prisoners and work towards the welfare of their children.

School Management Committees or SMCs build a critical bridge between the community and the school, playing the additional role of providing oversight in schools to ensure all basic requirements of the school are being met as per the Right to Education Guidelines 2009. The RTE Act envisions an SMC as the basic unit of a decentralized model of governance with active involvement of parents in the school’s functioning.

The School Management Committee (SMC) Jhajju, Bikaner holds periodic and planned meetings and operates under a defined agenda in convergence with the mandate of the State Education Department, Rajasthan. Funds provisioned by the Department are used towards curricular and co-curricular activities and general school maintenance.

To supplement this and ensure sustainability, the SMC has successfully mobilised a whopping INR 8,35,850 from teachers, the community and stakeholders towards the renovation of the school sanitary complex, construction of a changing room equipped with a sanitary napkin incinerator for girls (to address high absenteeism during menses) and installation of drinking water facilities. A portion of the money was also utilised to provide sweaters and uniforms to 145 children in need.

The SMC supported school is a Central Government certified implementer of the National Green Corps initiative, creates awareness around conservation and undertakes conservation activities at the school and community level. As a productive recreational activity, the committee also promotes a ‘School Scout’ for children. The percentage of students who have passed the 2018 Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education Examinations is also testament to the learning environment created by the SMC: 100%, 100%, 98% and 99% for standards 5, 8, 10 and 12 respectively.