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.

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.

Sundari is an Anganwadi Worker at the most popular Anganwadi Centre in Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu. Using innovative teaching methods and tasty wholesome recipes, she has ensured that children who come to her Centre stay enrolled. Although it started with just three, the Centre has served 125 children so far.

She has created a joyful learning environment for one and all, while paying careful attention to students with special needs. Her Centre is one of very few that stays open late to enable migrant workers to pick up their children after work. She also formed a community-wide volunteer group including neighbours of children enrolled in the Centre and other potential attendees, to ensure maximum enrolment and attendance.

Her commitment to the children in her Centre is so strong, that she liaised with the local Panchayat, District Collector, ICDS and Public Works Department for over 1.5 years to improve the building’s infrastructure. Due to her efforts, the Centre now has a compound wall and toilet complex where there was none before.

Reaching out to 1,200 households, she ensures that all community members, especially girls and women, benefit from government schemes and access to healthcare. Under her care, 100% of children between 1-5 years of age have been immunised, and children suffering from malnutrition are provided care and support so they achieve their development milestones. She also provides health and hygiene orientation sessions to Panchayat-level federations of Self-Help Groups with members from as many as ten villages.

Sundari has transformed countless lives in her seven years’ work as an Anganwadi Worker, going above and beyond the call of duty.

It has been 25 years since Padmabati began working as an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife at a Public Health Centre (PHC) in Mayurbhanj, Odisha, a predominantly tribal area. In this time, she has served residents of three villages and 33 hamlets, covering nearly 1,000 households and a population of 7,342 people.

This includes 852 children between 0-3 years of age who are now healthy and happy, and have been immunised due to her efforts. Breaking through age-old myths and misconceptions, she conducted 88 institutional deliveries (deliveries in hospitals by doctors) and was able to ensure 100% institutional deliveries and safe motherhood in her community.

She teams up with Anganwadi Workers to organise sessionson exclusive breastfeeding and nutrition, which contribute to child survival, development and wellbeing in the long term. This is reflected in the Infant and Maternal Mortality Rates in the area, which have been zero for a decade.

She keeps an eye out for older children in the community as well, dissuading parents from marrying them off before they are of legal age, as this has lifelong adverse impacts. She has been able to stop 15 child marriages with the help of the local Child Protection Committee.

Taking this further, she addresses sensitive but critical topics of sexual health and menstrual hygiene, training young people in her community to be ambassadors of public health and passing on her zeal for preventive healthcare to the next generation. In doing so, she ensures the community can sustainably and easily access services at the PHC and beyond.

Padmabati has been a powerful changemaker since 1994, paving the way for long-term development of young people, their families and communities too.work.

The Child Welfare Committee-Mumbai City-II is transforming the lives of underserved children in Mumbai, Maharashtra, one child at a time. Chairperson Mr Vjay Diapode, Ms Nanda, Ms Christine and Ms Helen are living embodiments of the principle that every child deserves love, and this informs everything they do. One of two winners in the category, they have supported a total 1,578 cases, among which they counselled 1,303 children and their parents and reunited them; deemed 24 children eligible for institutional care, sponsorship and adoption; and placed 93 children under the ‘Bal Sangopan Yojana’ (a State Government run programme which provides alternate family care to children in difficult circumstances).

Understanding the trauma and pain associated with sexual exploitation, they have been a pillar of support for a 100 child survivors, especially girls, counselling them and striving to sensitise all stakeholders including the Police, NGOs, schools and community members to ensure that every single case is taken seriously.

Taking a partnership approach, the committee has linked itself with a network of 25 NGOs, the Secretariat of Women and Child Development Department, State Government, Juvenile Justice High Court Committee, Railway Police, Railway Ticket Collectors as well as the District Commissioner of Police and Assistance Commissioner of Police, who frequently visit and extend their support in coordinating activities with the Committee.

Taking this further, they were able to impart professional training on the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 to 200 police personnel, sensitising them on how to engage with children from different socio-economic backgrounds. Given the increasing number of single parent households in the area, they also sensitised 33 police personnel and networked NGOs on related issues and challenges, providing 60 single parents with assistance from 13 NGOs by appointing them as Supervision Personnel, in case parents exhibited difficulties in handling their child on their own.

The work of the Committee to rehabilitate the victims of child labour has also garnered media attention, for good reason. Among other things, they have been instrumental in facilitating National Saving Certificates in the name of rescued child labourers, paid for by offending employers who were also penalised by law.

The CWC-Mumbai City-II has built a safe environment for children, in which they grow and thrive. There is no higher testament to their work than the happiness of the children they serve.

Community Volunteer Alka Gujnal is reputed to be the most trustworthy person in her community. For the past 20 years, she has strived tirelessly to improve the lives of marginalised commercial sex workers in Pune, Maharashtra. Working with over 2,000 brothel, street and home-based commercial sex workers, she helps them combat stigma and discrimination.

She also ensures their children are taken care of, having enrolled as many as 46 in school. This was not easy, as the children faced discrimination from others, however, she set up dialogues with School Management Committees, teachers and students to ensure the children stay in school and can benefit from a joyful learning environment. She has also been able to re-enrol 40 children of commercial sex workers (who had dropped out of school) in remedial classes. More girls go to school now than ever before.

A decade ago, she established 'Sanskarvarg', a forum that has oriented over 300 children on ‘good and bad touch' and their rights. The group meets in the evening, when the children’s mothers go to work, so also providing a safe atmosphere for the children.

HIV/AIDS is a difficult subject in the community, but she has raised awareness and helped improve health seeking behaviour. With her support, more than 350 women have been able to access regular medical care and services, and 20 women living with HIV have been linked to free Antiretroviral Therapy.

Aside from this, she has built a network of over 200 commercial sex workers who routinely come together to discuss their issues and ideate solutions. She also facilitates counselling sessions and provides vocational training and livelihood support to women who wish to leave the profession.

Her networking skills have helped her create an enabling environment supported by stakeholders and influential people including healthcare service providers, law enforcement, local leaders and more. Despite initial opposition from her family and society, Alka has made a lasting impact on the lives of thousands of women and children in Pune.

Seventeen year old Sarathi lives in a small village in Jharkhand, with a population of 291 people (154 female and 137 male). One of seven siblings raised by a single mother, she understood the power of education at an early age, and even worked alongside her mother as an agricultural labourer to gather money for her school fees.

A bright young student, she works hard to ensure that, like her, all girls get the chance to study. She counsels children, young people and their families, so that children, especially girls, continue and complete their studies. Her efforts led two families to enroll their daughters in private school. To keep others from dropping out, she offers free tuition as well, and has tutored 45 students from the 1st to the 8th standard in the last two years. She also volunteers as a teacher at a school, where she identifies and supports students with special needs and works with teachers to create a joyful learning environment. She speaks out against caste-based discrimination and has initiated a rotational seating arrangement in school to ensure that students from marginalised backgrounds can sit in the front row and engage in classroom activities.

In the community and village council meetings too, she raises the issue of caste-based discrimination in community and village council meetings, due to which two Scheduled Tribe members are now part of the Panchayat Samiti (rural local government). She also runs awareness drives and campaigns in the community and has stopped two child marriages.

Through an adolescent empowerment programme, she works with the 20 young people in her community and conducts orientation sessions on health, education, vocation, financial literacy, savings, and more. She obtained a Diploma in Computer Applications and due to her aptitude and interest, was invited to become an instructor at the institute. She has since trained 25 students.

Additionally, she has enrolled in the ‘Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana’, the flagship scheme of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to enable youth to take up industry-relevant skill training to secure better livelihoods. As she learns new skills, she motivates her peers to join as well, and has been able to enroll two so far.

Sarathi's commitment to education and equality have made her a household name and role model. No challenge is too big for this powerful young woman.

Prafull is the proud son of an auto rickshaw driver and Founder of a Learning Centre that provides free educational coaching and mental health support for underserved girls in the slums of Mumbai, Maharashtra. He was 22 when he established the Centre in 2016, with the aim of helping girls from 1st to the 12th standard on the road to financial independence. The Centre also focuses on higher studies, including training for entrance exams. In the last three years, as many as 2,000 girls aged 7-16 have been trained there.

Mindful of the limited resources available to him, Prafull has created a self-sustaining model for free education at the Centre. He has managed to engage a rent-free space and volunteers to help out. In keeping with the spirit of inclusion, his Centre is open to all communities and has no screening process. This way, he provides long-term coaching to those who would not otherwise have access to quality education. He has also linked and facilitated special guest lectures at the Centre, with eminent personalities, academic experts from renowned colleges, universities, and institutes including the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). He enlisted the support of ten friends, some of whom are IIT Alumni, to raise funds to support the Centre as well.

He also conducted up to 3,000 door-to-door visits with parents in the community to invite them to the Centre and involve them in the academic performance of their daughters so they are invested in their learning outcomes and see long-term benefits in their education.

Knowing that life skills are as important as academics, he teaches practical skills that include creative and critical thinking. He also provides career counselling and training on software, hardware and data processing, giving trainees a necessary edge in a very competitive market. At the community level, he has conducted 80 free professional development workshops and extra-curricular activities.

His work has borne fantastic results. Within three years, his Centre has seen an aggregate enrolment of up to 2,000 girls, average attendance of 70% and a drop-out rate of less than 1%. His students have scored over 85% marks in public Secondary School Certificate and Higher Secondary Certificate examinations. Notably, a student from the Centre was accepted to IIT, and as many as 20 were placed in permanent jobs, including leading banks HDFC and ICICI.