Compendium for Full Day Childcare and After-school Care Centre by Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST)

[Monika Sharma]

Dear All, 

I am Monika Sharma, Project Consultant at ISST. We at ISST have been highlighting the issue of unpaid care work and childcare work that women find themselves burdened with for several years now. Through our work, we have reiterated the need for universal provisioning of full day quality childcare facility for all children under the age of six as an important strategy to support women’s ability to access decent paid work opportunities. We have also highlighted the need for universal provisioning of quality afterschool care for child above six years of age in order to provide them a safe space after school hours as well as a support structure for their educational and learning needs. We strongly believe that support structure such as these not only contribute towards the development of the child into a healthy, thinking adult but also helps the mother to negotiate and access decent work opportunities.

In order to create more evidential base to showcase the positive impact that full day childcare and after school care has on the well-being of both, child as well as the mother, we are currently in the process of developing a Compendium on Full Day Childcare and Afterschool Care Facilities in India, to collate information on organizations which are running these to provide nutritional and developmental support to children of economically marginalized families. The objective of preparing this compendium is to bring information on these different centres in one place as we believe that this would provide more visibility to already existing full-day childcare and afterschool care centres in the country and will also highlight the support that they provide to women with young children. However, there is very little information on many of them in the public arena. Hence, we have initiated a process of personally getting in touch with each of these organizations to collection information that would help us understand their role in building of childcare support, the nature of the model, target groups and existing issues and challenges.

While we have been able to reach and garner information from some organizations, we understand that there may be many more with whom we might not have been able to connect. To overcome this, we feel the best way is to reach out to our own community of social organizations/researchers/academia who would be best suited to help us in gaining access to those we have missed.

We are therefore reaching out to you to help us identify and contact organizations who are running full day childcare (for 0-6 years) and afterschool care (for 6+ years) facilities for children of marginalized communities. These centres should be working towards providing a safe space to the child where s/he is nurtured and stimulated in an age-appropriate manner.

Your support in this endeavor would be highly appreciated.

Please reach out to us at-

Monika Sharma ([e-mail])

Ashmeet Kaur ([e-mail])

[Rituu B Nanda]

Hi Monica,

Brick kilns are the second largest non-farm employer in India.

Avani a NGO  runs day care centres in three districts of Maharashtra- Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur for children of brick kiln and sugar factory workers who migrate primarily from Karnataka for around 7 months every year. Women have no family support to leave their children. In many cases children get engaged in child labour.

So Avani provides day care for 0-6 years and after school care for those aged 6-14 years. Avani has also set up a parents network of three districts so that they can engage with the government for their rights. Avani also links women working here to immunization services of the government.

I can connect you with the team.