The poor women in our target villages are hard working labourers. They need to go for manual works with leaving their small babies in their homes. For caring such babies in the age group of 3 to 5, the grown up children (mostly the girls) are retained in the homes as baby sitters. Thus the children especially girls become school drop outs. Moreover the kids also suffer with mal nutrition and losses their opportunity to begin their basic education. In this background ARDS began to operate balwadi centres in Kalakad and Cheranmahadevi blocks.
These centres operate from 9.00 a.m to 4.00 p.m with the intervals for food, games and snapping. Children are taught alphabets, numbers, names of birds, animals, objects and the back ground of their neighborhood. They learn through play way methods. They are also practiced on good health principles such as proper methods of hand washing, nail care, tooth brushing and using toilets. (While these children adopt these health principles in their homes, they become health ambassadors to their poor illiterate parents). In order to promote the health of the children, mid day nutrition is also provided. Periodic health check-ups are conducted in which height and weight of the children is also measured. Each centre is administered by one instructor and one helper. One health worker regularly visits these centres
We require funds for running these centers continuously.?? Presently our centers run at rental buildings and hence we propose to construct new and convenient buildings for our children.
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