The Corona crisis is a huge challenge for the population, in the Indian cities and also in the villages. Also in our project area close to Coimbatore and the villages the situation is obvious: besides the risks of the virus itself the direct and indirect consequences are huge. The income situation in many families is critical. This has a huge impact on many health aspects, too: nutrition, hygiene, mental health … even more important are now the Kindergarten teachers in the villages who are also informal health workers and often the very first reference point when it comes to health issues. It’s now the fifth year that we have worked with a larger group of them to bring more knowledge and health awareness into the Kindergarten work. The anganwadi teacher participated regularly in many of our modules based training offers.

Now there are some good news: the construction work of two new kindergarten which we had planned in our project area have started.

In the last years under the umbrella of the Making More Health initiative already three anganwadi (this is how rural kindergarten are called) have been inaugurated. These anganwadi do not just take care about young children but are also small informal local centers where a lot of health education takes place, such as vaccination campaigns, sexual education for adolescents and information sessions for pregnant women and mothers.

“Our two kindergarten’s works are going very fast and reached roof level and after deepavali platering work will take place. One MMH kindergarten is built in Dhaliyur village and another one in Poochiyur village – MMH BI family kindergarten,” informs Selvaraj, our local NGO partner from the Karl Kuebel institute for development education ( KKID)

Our Kindergarten buildings and activities take place now in Tamil Nadu, too.

Our project area close to Coimbatore covers part of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Both Kindergarten this time are built in Tamil Nadu. Dhaliyur is a western suburb/ village of Coimbatore city. Poochiyur is more in the northern parts. The three former MMH Kindergarten buildings – not too far away- are geographically located in Kerala. It took only a few days that the Kindergarten and the related programs got known also in the neighborhood.

It’s a great moment to scale up our efforts and to be able to include even more anganwadi teachers in the whole program. A program that train the teachers in many aspects: they gain a lot of additional health knowledge but also participate in digital trainings, learn about social entrepreneurial ideas and become more self confident. This will empower the children and village people around.