Project Social Welfare Agency & Training Institute (SWATI)

Campaign Story

About the project

The Kandhamal District, in the state of Orissa, is primarily pre-dominated by the Kondh community. The infant mortality rate (IMR) is alarmingly high and children under 5 years of age are severely underweight. The main sources of income for the people of the Kondh community are agriculture, physical labor and sale of minor forest products. The low yield therefore causes poverty and starvation.

Making a difference

CRY America’s Project SWATI team has been constantly working towards providing access to basic healthcare services for pregnant and lactating mothers. The project also works towards reduction of malnutrition among the children of 6 months to 5 years and anemia reduction among the pregnant and adolescent girls. The key activities under the project are growth monitoring of children at ICDS center and counseling of parents for home management practices for reduction of malnutrition.

Action during COVID times

● 7,200 families received hygiene supplies
● 5,185 community members were made aware of COVID helplines
● 4,137 families and 1,048 migrant families received information related to ration cards

The way forward

● Meeting with the villagers at community level for developing health action plans
● Village level sensitization programme for facilitating the institutional birth delivery
● Growth monitoring of the children from 6 months to 6 years
● Meeting with adolescent girls on anemia, health and hygiene

Project Impact

100% pregnant and lactating mothers linked to one or more existing health schemes

100%

Pregnant and lactating mothers linked to one or more existing health schemes

99% of women delivered babies at an institution

99%

Of women delivered babies at an institution

Reduction of severe underweight children from 1.38% to 1.15%

Increase in the normal category of children from 82.95% to 85.4%

pregnant and lactating mothers linked to one or more existing health schemes

100%

Of mothers of 6-9 months children who exclusively breast fed their child for complete 6 months

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Last Year’s Grant Disbursed: $24,371

Current Year’s Approved Grant

Health$1,855

Nutrition$1,855

Education$7,418

Administration$5,033

Protection$795

Participation$9,537

Total Budget$26,493

A story of collaborative effort

Sumangi is a small village of 28 households and the population of the village is around 294. The villagers are neglected in all government provisions and there wasn’t an Anganwadi center in the village. The villagers faced many problems related to pregnancy care, immunization, pre-school child education and availing the Anganwadi provisions. They had to cover a 4 kilometer long distance through the forest to reach the center at Kuirmandu and most of the time they failed to attend any activities at the center. The children had not gone to the center and the pregnant women had not attended the immunization camps. The villagers had appealed many times to the block officials to open a center but had failed.

When CRY America Project SWATI was initiated in the area they requested to facilitate the opening of a center in the village. The program coordinator organized the villagers to write an application to the CDPO elaborating their problem related to Anganwadi. The villagers met with the CDPO and discussed the problem. The CDPO assured them to take action very soon. A new center was sanctioned to the village and within a month the construction work started. By November 2018 the work was finished and the center started functioning.

Now the villagers are very happy with their own Anganwadi center. Due to this center the village has achieved many things in mother and child care, child education, immunization and sanitation. In the past the village had many malnutrition cases among women and children, the immunization percentage was very low, the villagers suffered cold, cough, fever, skin disease etc. on a regular basis because of unclean surroundings. But now many things have changed, the villager’s awareness on child birth, child care, education, delivery care, cleanliness, village sanitization and institutional delivery have improved. The villagers are gathering in VHND camps, mother’s meetings, committee meetings and health camps and availing all health provisions. The children are attending Anganwadi classes daily. The center has opened a new chapter of development in the village.

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