Nearly half of the world’s hungry and malnourished children are in India; in fact they number more than those in the entire sub-Saharan Africa. Even worse is the numbing statistic of four children dying every minute in India because of starvation. Other preventable deaths from diarrhoea, malaria and unsafe deliveries are an altogether separate record in mortalities. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that India is among the most dangerous places in the world for a child to be. We are sixth in a global poll, which ranks countries where children are most vulnerable. And unlike war-torn countries, it is the violence of poverty that makes the Indian child so vulnerable.

Against this backdrop, let us mirror another set of statistics. The Government of India along with various State Governments runs three of the world’s largest programmes targeted at children’s welfare – the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the Midday Meal programme to feed all elementary school going children and the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan - the Universalisation of Elementary Education programme. All three of them reaching out to millions of underprivileged children. Every year the budgeted allocations to these programmes are on the increase. Then why are we failing? Where are we going wrong?

Having been part of the nation’s efforts in providing an overall enabling environment for children to be born healthy and to grow up in, Naandi feels the fault is not entirely with the state or its efforts. The challenge is so gargantuan, the task so complex and onerous that any effort made by the state alone ends up in making only a limited, Lilliputian impact when compared to the problem.

We know that the near double digit growth of the Indian economy, in the last decade, is not the result of isolated state run initiatives only, but the collective efforts of the state, private and global players which are popularly termed Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).

If this is common wisdom then why didn’t we invite and engage greater participation from the non-government sector? Why didn’t we include the private corporate sector to accelerate our efforts at addressing child rights? After all, they have as much to gain from nurturing generations with education and health to make them able, responsible, productive citizens.

Fortunately the movement seems to have begun. Governments of Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan have led by example by inviting NGOs such as Naandi, institutions and corporates into jointly creating solutions for their social sector problems. And change has been evident. Our successes in these states have led us to believe that PPPs are needed everywhere, they have to be the order of the day. They have to become the agenda of every individual or organisation that has anything to do with India.

These PPPs are not just between state governments and Naandi, but are more pluralistic in nature as they are aimed at bringing together leading corporates, thought leaders, national and international agencies such as The World Bank, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Swedish International Development Agency, and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust to name a few. In that sense Naandi has broadened the paradigm and improvised on the PPP model to include another P: Public Private Pluralist Partnerships. The 4P model.

Naandi has been intensifying its efforts through such initiatives to be counted as a torch bearer of this Child Rights centered PPPP movement. Two of Naandi’s largest programmes are - providing Midday Meals in government elementary schools, and ensuring children attain grade specific learning competencies. Through these two programmes Naandi impacts positively over half million children every day.

Wherever the 4p model functions for Child Rights it is with the conviction that every child is entitled to quality care and nurture, and at various stages of life she must get essential health, education and nutritional inputs irrespective of whether her parents can pay for it or not.

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECE)

To improve life enhancing services to a child right from the time she is a baby till she is ready for school, Naandi’s Child Rights portfolio embraces both safe motherhood and early childhood care and education interventions into its fold.

From safe delivery to the first five years of infancy, underprivileged children, in millions are denied full realisation of their rights. Inadequacies of the Government run safe motherhood and ICDS programmes result in malnourished and stunted growth children who start their school years with a huge disadvantage. And lack of adequate childcare centres force daily wage earning parents make elder siblings dropout of school to take care of younger ones.

For healthier and more enabling childhoods Naandi is setting up and running ECD centres in remote and backward tribal and low literacy districts of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Through value additions such as trainings to existing service providers in the ICDS schemes for greater responsiveness to community demands, curriculum enrichment (both health and cognitive), encouraging community participation (through donation of common land and of labour to set up the ECD centres), Naandi has been creating stronger linkages between communities, local self governments and the state in the initiation and running of ECD centres and thereby preparing children in these areas to enter the phase of elementary education.

Partnering with Government Elementary Schools: Ensuring Children Learn

The lowest percentile of Indian population, the one at the base of the pyramid is the only one that accesses government schools, that is, if it accesses schools at all. Despite increasing investments the institution of the government school – the bedrock from where will emerge India’s future citizens - is crumbling. At least that’s what the numbers say. Only 3/10 girls enrolled in grade I reach grade X. For boys the score is only a shade better. Drop outs are increasing in the higher grades. Learning outcomes measured across the states and regions show abysmal results. More than half of Indian school going children in any grade demonstrate learning that is far below the minimum learning levels.

To improve learning levels and bring about change in these statistics Naandi with support from progressive institutions such as Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Sir Ratan Tata Trust, REACH India (a USAID programme) have entered into a novel partnership with state governments. After school hours, Naandi runs Academic Support Centres (ASC) in the school premises itself. Targeted mainly at improving learning levels of girl students, scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students, and other low performing students (based on a third party baseline assessment of their learning levels) these centres are run by trained, committed community youth (mostly women). These classes are conducted free of cost for the students and attendance is purely voluntary on their part. Experience so far shows that children have been thronging to these classes despite having them after school hours. For instance, in the tribal Bastar region of Chhattisgarh where these classes take place at the break of dawn before school hours, children reach these centres even before the youth or the Bala Mitra as the facilitator is fondly called, comes to take lessons.

Focus is on mathematics, science and languages. Like the learning level baseline mapping, Naandi’s ASC-based learning improvement efforts are assessed for efficacy and improvement through a third party assessment programme twice a year.

However, the centre based ‘after school hour’ approach is Naandi’s introductory intervention for constructive engagement with the government education system. Using lesson plans, innovative pedagogical tools including multi-grade group learning approaches. Naandi together with government school teachers, intends to standardise and modularise these learning transactions without jeopardising scope for creativity. These modules built on concept learning, problem solving, repeated practice is eventually meant for adaptation by the teachers themselves in the mainstream schooling system.

Naandi will, of course, continue to offer the ASC service to any of the low performers who need further conceptual clarity and a learning environment space for revising lessons. Currently, nearly 1200 community youth have been trained to take classes in the Naandi centres in schools, fully aware that they’ll never substitute regular teachers, this cadre is designated as community activists. The spirit behind this approach is the need for action-based activism that will generate a community based demand for quality education. To include the community Open Blackboards and Community Meetings are held to create greater influence and ownership from among parents and the community over the way their children are learning and performing.

The Open Blackboard is a Naandi innovation. It is put up at a public place near a government school to display: Student enrolment, Student attendance, Teacher attendance, status of the school environment and facilities, and so on. It is filled everyday with observations by a child, a teacher and a community member and these observations are discussed at monthly community meetings providing a forum for grievances to be aired between parents and teachers, for suggestions to be shared and for joint action for improvement to be taken.

Nanhi Kali: Special focus on the girl child

In the infamous Chambal Valley in Madhya Pradesh, in the insurgency ridden tribal regions of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and in the slums of Hyderabad and Mumbai girls struggle to get the attention and opportunity they deserve to be equal partners with boys in their right to quality elementary education. The Nanhi Kali (meaning a little bud) project is a step to bridge this gender gap. Run by contributions from India’s civil society and corporates, and managed jointly by the K. C. Mahindra Education Trust (KCMET) and Naandi Foundation, the project supports girl children in a variety of ways that enable them to continue with their education. This includes on one hand their need for uniforms, learning aids, personal hygiene materials and on the other, personalised tutorial needs through the Academic Support Centres that Naandi runs at the government schools these girls go to.

Because of the project, today, stories of girls abandoned by their parents, girls forced to stay back at home for want of clothes and uniforms, girls made to drop out because parents believed it unnecessary to educate their daughters are gradually giving way to case studies of girls flocking to school, of girls learning, and of parents thinking twice about taking their daughters off from schools. The Nanhi Kali movement supported whole heartedly by private citizens, and the tribe of Nanhi Kali guides from Naandi are doing their bit to make Universalisation of Elementary Education more equitable, and a reality across some very tough terrains in the country.

Going by the impact made on the girl children, and the response to this movement from all sections of society, the vision that the project has set for itself - support one million deserving girl children - seems very achievable in the near future.

The Midday Meal: Combating hunger and malnourishment in schools

Ever since the Honorable Supreme Court of India ordered Central and State Governments to provide a cooked, nutritious midday meal mandatorily to every elementary school going child in India, Naandi seized the opportunity to offer the service (with enhanced investment and partnership from private sector) in places where state governments couldn’t run the programme in isolation. Starting with the Andhra Pradesh government, Naandi expanded its midday meal service programme with Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan governments as well by setting up state-of-the-art centralised kitchens that supply nutritious, hot, hygienically cooked meals of uniform quality to all schools in a region. This meant teachers were freed from cooking, schools were saved from risks of fire hazards, and standardisation of food quality for all children were ensured.

As a next step, Naandi is entering into a partnership with Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Swiss NGO that is focused on iron, vitamin, micro nutrient supplementation/ fortification globally to combat malnourishment. With this partnership Naandi will further add value to the midday meal programme by fortifying food grains used for the preparation of the meals. In some cases innovative supplements like fortified biscuits are also being planned using the 4P model.

The 50 paise Miracle: The schoolchild healthcare plan

Working with government school going children has been an educative process for Naandi in designing a comprehensive set of interventions and services that guarantee children their basic rights. Our learning has been that many children that come to government schools are in dire need for health and medical care support. That very often it is ill health that hinders a child’s growth and ability to learn. The attempt to address this led Naandi in partnership with NICE Foundation (Neonatal Intensive Care and Emergencies) to innovate a template for a comprehensive school healthcare plan for government school going children to safeguard them from diseases, deficiencies and permanent handicaps.

Under the plan, all primary school students are provided with a comprehensive medical cover free of cost that encompasses promotive, preventive and curative healthcare services. Through extensive health screenings, individual health profiles (general health, dental, optometric, cardiac) are created and each child is issued a health ID card with a unique number. The card entitles the child to access to free out-patient and in-patient health care 24X7 as long as she remains enrolled at a Government school. A toll free emergency telephone number makes this service available at all times especially during emergencies.

As a part of the programme, extra space in select nodal schools has been used for setting up out-patient clinics for students from in and around the schools to access during week days. These nodal schools are within a 4 km radius to enable access to all the neighbourhood school going children. The in-patient care is provided through a base hospital equipped with intensive care and other paediatric facilities in a child friendly environment that compares with the best in the private sector. For specialised healthcare requirements such as surgeries, cardiac care or AIDS care the programme has linkages with the best tertiary care hospitals.

Having completed successfully two years of the programme in Hyderabad, the schoolchild healthcare template is now ready for replication anywhere in the country. It has been launched in Udaipur, Rajasthan to cover over 40,000 children. At 50 paise per day per child this template appears to be the miracle panacea for all the ills preventing children from continuing their education.