Seva Mandir’s Balwadi Programme
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Seva Mandir’s Balwadi ProgrammeAn Evaluation Report September 2009ByAstad PastakiaDevelopment Consultant and Former Professor at the Nirma Institute of Management, AhmedabadDr. Kirti SinghGynaecologist and ObstetricianNirali MehtaSenior Programme Manager at Save the Children International and former ECCD Technical Advisor at Plan International ForSeva Mandir, Udaipurand Paul Hamlyn FoundationTable of ContentsExecutive SummaryBackground Objectives and methodology Impact of Balwadi on Status of Children Nutrition Immunisation Health Cognitive Development Impact of Balwadi on Family Members Parents Siblings
Participation of Different Stakeholders Sanchalikas Parents
Gram Vikas Samiti Seva Mandir Influencing the Larger System Collaboration with ICDS Collaboration with other NGOs Towards a Long term Strategy of Collaboration and Policy Advocacy
Sustainability of Balwadis Reducing Cost per Balwadi Community Support External Support
Conclusions and Recommendations Overall Fine-tuning the model Specific recommendations
Seva Mandir’s Balwadi programme has evolved over the past two decades. Paul Hamlyn Foundation has been supporting this programme since the past nine years. The report presents the findings of end-term evaluation of the third consecutive project having a total budget of Rs. 24.279 m of which Paul Hamlyn Foundation picked up Rs. 10.671 m. The rest was supported by other donor agencies. The framework of inquiry and analysis was adopted from the project proposal, which lists five main objectives. Wherever, the indicators provided were found inadequate, these were substituted or supplemented with additional ones. Assessment The review shows that physical targets have been exceeded while financial achievements are in line with budgeted expenditure. The average attendance per Balwadi has gone up from 12 to 18 indicating better participation and appreciation of the Balwadi services in general. The review team is in total conformity regarding the need to continue this activity on a sustainable basis, given the high level of malnutrition and iron deficiency in the region on one hand and abysmally poor implementation of government schemes on the other. The project has had significant impacts as described below: Proportion of severe malnutrition among the Balwadi children, has come down by more than 70% from a level of >17.5% to about 5.0% (when compared to benchmark study of 2004). The percentage of normal children has increased by about 33.8% making almost half the children free from any form of malnutrition. Cognitive development of the children, and learning of secular values, local culture, hygiene etc. has been taking place to the satisfaction of all. Although iron deficiency could not be monitored properly, there is anecdotal evidence to show that the problem is being arrested, although magnitude is not certain. Linkage of out-going Balwadi children with various schools / NFEs has taken place giving a boost to education of the children. Retention in these schools of Balwadi children has also been reported to be as high as 87%. Balwadis have enabled more than half the mothers to pursue livelihood activities and/or domestic work as per an explorative study. A more rigorous and representative study would provide a better understanding of impacts on both parents and siblings. On the other hand there is evidence that moderate malnutrition continues to be rather high at about 45%. The causes could be traced both to limitations in the present design of the Balwadi as well as implementation. A major long-term limitation is the acute poverty in the region, which prevents parents from giving the necessary nutrition and care at home. The other limitation is the failure of parents to get their children immunized in time either due to lack of awareness or due to lack of facilities. Suggestions have been made to address these issues and fine-tune the model. In addition several incremental measures have been suggested to improve implementation under the existing design. These are reported separately for nutrition, health, immunization, cognitive development activities, and better participation of different stakeholder groups. Fine-tuning the model A few indicators suggest the need to fine-tune the present model: The demand pattern as indicated in the age-wise profile of Balwadi children shows a mismatch between what is offered by Balwadi centers and what if preferred by parents. Most parents do not prefer to send children less than 2 yrs of age while almost a fifth of the children attending the Balwadis are older than the maximum age of 5 years. Hence the original target age of 2-6 years seems to be more appropriate. (However, this can only be adopted if some mechanism is in place to ensure that children in age group 0-2 years get nutrition and other health related inputs at home.) At present the Sanchalikas are under tremendous pressure, as they have to look after children of different age groups with different needs. In general children of age group 1-2 require greater attention and fewer such children can be taken care of by one person as compared to 3-6 yr olds. Seva Mandir is in the process of introducing a new health scheme called Bal Sakhi, wherein a trained health worker would provide health and nutrition services at home to children from 0-5 yrs. This represents an ideal opportunity to bring these two programmes together in order to gain synergy from both. If the Bal Sakhi and Sanchalika can work together in tandem, the total impact of the two programmes would bring about dramatic improvement in the status of children. The precise changes needed to bring about such synergy need to be worked out together by the two teams implementing these programmes. Tackling the issue of sustainability In the mean time it is suggested that Seva Mandir come out with a perspective plan over the next ten years to show how it would address the problem of long-term sustainability of the Balwadis. The best long-term solution would be for the community to be prosperous enough to support its own Balwadi. In the medium term, food security can be improved significantly by bringing about convergence with Seva Mandir’s livelihood programmes Convergence with wadi (horticultural) and livestock programmes offer the best prospects for improving nutritional supplements to children. Diversifying the economy through lift irrigation and other water harvesting measures are equally important. The capacity of many SHGs/ CBOs could also be built to take up livelihood activities that supply material inputs (like wooden toys etc) and nutritional inputs (food mixes) to the Balwadis. Better convergence with immunization and health programmes is also critical for improving the health of the children. Since immunization can only be provided through the state machinery, various methods could be adopted to ensure that parents take advantage of the state services. Here both the demand and supply side constraints would need to be addressed simultaneously. It is suggested that a camp approach towards immunization be adopted to secure better results in a short time. In the same vein, convergence with NFEs would go a long way in the cognitive development of the children since the pedagogy adopted by NFE is similar to that of Balwadi. Other practical ways to improve sustainability would be to reduce the cost of running a Balwadi by substituting external inputs with local inputs and increasing the emphasis on local culture and local bio-diversity in the activity mix. The project has made substantial progress in working towards a long-term solution by joining forces with other like-minded NGOs and engaging in dialogue with ICDS, Udaipur. Seva Mandir has been elected co-convener of the Rajasthan Chapter of FORCES network, after which it has been instrumental in organizing a state level workshop, which has produced the desired results. Efforts at mobilizing people to demand better services and make the government machinery more responsive can benefit greatly by studying the URMUL model. In a unique experiment, Seva Mandir has collaborated with ICDS to train local communities to monitor the functioning of Anganwadis with the help of cameras. The project is expected to improve attendance of AWWs and improve performance. Such initiatives should continue. In the long run, a collaborative models should be worked out where Seva Mandir is able to negotiate from a position of strength, serving as a consultant to ICDS rather than as a mere implementer of its programmes. People’s participation especially for monitoring of services should form an important component of such public-private partnership models that may emerge in future to address the problem of government failure in providing this critical service to the local communities. Introduction Project Title: Further Development of the Balwadi (Pre-school) Programme (October 2006- September 2009) Project outlay: The project has a total budget of Rs. 24.279 m of which Paul Hamlyn Foundation picked up Rs. 10.671 m. The rest was supported by other donor agencies. Paul Hamlyn Foundation has been supporting this programme since the past nine years. The report presents the findings of end-term evaluation of the third consecutive project. A multi-disciplinary team with following backgrounds carried out the study: Astad Pastakia (participatory management of rural development projects) Dr. Kirti Singh (ECCD with focus on immunization and health) Nirali Mehta (ECCD with focus on cognitive development) Background Over the last 23 years, Seva Mandir has been working to address issues related to early child-care and development. Young children in the rural areas of Udaipur district face a high level of malnourishment as revealed by the high proportion of underweight children (40% according to NFHS – 3 and 62.8% according to Seva Mandir’s own study of 2004) and also the high prevalence of anemia in the region (90.2% in the age group of 0-3, in Udaipur, according to Seva Mandir, 2004 and 69.7% in the age group of 1-5 yr of for Rajasthan state, according to NFHS-3). At the same time, lack of parental awareness about what is required to keep a child healthy, combined with lack of resources to provide it, compounds this problem. Furthermore, children lack many important inputs that will assist their cognitive development and give them greater opportunity for making a brighter future for themselves. In order to address these issues of early childhood care and development, Seva Mandir initiated the Balwadi programme in 1984. Over the course of the years, these centers have undergone a number of changes in response to emerging community demands and lessons learned along the way. Today, Balwadi centers are full-day pre-school centers being run by a trained local woman (known as a Sanchalika) for children in the 1 to 5 year age group in remote rural areas. Centers are located at the hamlet (Fala) level rather than at the village level, and an attempt is made to avoid overlap with Anganwadi centers of the ICDS. At the centers children are provided with nutritional, health and learning inputs in a safe and secure, nurturing environment. At present there are a total of 199 Balwadi centers catering to about 4487children in five blocks of Seva Mandir’s work area. The Balwadi centers aim to provide a mechanism through which communities can secure the holistic development of their young children without having to compromise on a variety of other important responsibilities – such as earning (in the case of mothers) or receiving an education (in the case off elder siblings). 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