ANANDWAN
The association of Maharogi Sewa Samiti,Warora (MSS) with Tech Mahindra Foundation started from the year 2008-09 when Tech Mahindra Foundation has generously agreed to sponsor MSS proposal for ‘Funding Additional Students in Special Schools at Anandwan’. The above proposal is in line with Tech Mahindra Foundation’s avowed objective of extending help and support towards providing Education to unprivileged children.
Since last four years the journey of MSS and Tech Mahindra Foundation is continuing successfully with both the partners’ commitment to come to the rescue of unprivileged children. During this period, Tech Mahindra Foundation not only extended support to MSS to meet the additional burden of providing Education, study material, disability aids, uniforms, food and accommodation to the blind, deaf-mute students admitted over and above the sanctioned strength of 150 students in both the special schools but also supported our projects towards procurement of equipment disability aids such as Speech Trainer, Up gradation of Cost of Braille Printer, Pocket Hearing Aids, Group Hearing Aids, ABRAR Group Hearing & Recording Machine, Music Instruments and sports equipment i.e., Cricket Kit, Chess Board, Lezim Set, Discus throw & Band Set for the benefit of handicapped students of Anand School for Visually Impaired Children & Anand School for Deaf-Dumb Students and JAWS software 11.07 for the benefit of visually handicapped students of I.T.Training Centre at Anandwan.
In addition to sponsoring of the above referred projects, TMF has also sponsored for the academic year 2011-12, MSS proposal for Provision of Nutritious Breakfast to Children in Special Schools.
The beneficiaries of the projects generously sponsored by Tech Mahindra Foundation since 2008-09, are the blind, deaf-mute children, few blind, deaf-mute students (who continue to stay at hostels in Anandwan and prepare for the tenth class examinations after passing out 7th standard from the Special Schools) as well as the visually challenged students who learn MSCIT and basic computer courses at I.T.Training Centre, Anandwan.
Achievements:
The main objective achieved by MSS with the generous funding received from Tech Mahindra Foundation is to sustain the admission of additional blind, deaf-mute students year after year (for whom the admission is being given on compassionate grounds since the parents of these handicapped children could not arrange even for provision of basic education along with related academic, cultural and sports activities). Without the funding from Tech Mahindra Foundation, it would have been very difficult for MSS to continue to give admission to additional students.
Provision of basic and special education to the additional students with decent accommodation, quality food, entertainment, disability aids, study material, uniforms, health checkups has been made possible on account of funding by Tech Mahindra Foundation. The outcome of this project is that the additional children with their handicap since birth could enjoy a decent childhood since admission in 1st standard till 7th standard.
From 18th July, 2011 onwards Nutritious Breakfast is provided to all the children in both the special schools with benevolent funding from Tech Mahindra Foundation. The expected outcome of this project is that the children would gain weight appropriate to their height, develop resistance towards common infections, better participation in day to day academic, cultural as well as sports activities which would lead to overall improvement in academic performance. Improved nutritional intake will lead to better reproductive health of girl students.
The overall achievement is the uninterrupted continuation of academic, cultural as well as sports activities of the handicapped children studying in Special Schools at Anandwan, since 2008-09. This was possible only because of continuous support of Tech Mahindra Foundation to MSS.
THE IMPACT OF THE NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTATION PROJECT ON BLIND AND DEAF MUTE SCHOOL CHILDREN AT ANANDWAN
MSS (Maharogi Sewa Samiti) has 273 children with disabilities in special schools including the visually challenged and hearing and speech impaired in age group between 5-15 years.. These children come from poor families in remote areas of Maharashtra with rampant malnourishment and continue to stay malnourished throughout. Surveys of MSS showed that more than 93% of the young visually challenged girls in school continue to be underweight later in their life which leads to problems in reproductive period such as having low birth weight babies. Anemia and intestinal worm infestations are common findings that act both as causes and effects of malnutrition. It is difficult to restore the health of such children with regular food that just supplements their dietary needs.
Malnutrition reduces attention span in schools which further impacts their scholastic performance and overall receptivity. Hence in their growing age, children need a balanced food consisting of a right mix of cereals, proteins, fats and vitamins as well as other essential minerals.
As per the WHO the total recommended calorie supplementation for the 10 year boy/girl per day should be 2150 (Kcal/day). As the government grant received on each child is less that 15 rupees a day (which is supposed to take care of meals, clothing and educational expenditure), considering current inflationary trends, it was impossible for the school authorities to provide healthy food to the children in long run. At Anandwan, for the same target group, the calorie deficit per day of this target group was 800 (Kcal/day). In the growing age, kids need five to six meals a day because of their small appetites. However the school could provide only 2 or 3 meals owing to cost constraints. MSS identified that there was a gap of 16 hours between dinner (6 PM) and lunch (10 AM next day).
Thus there was an urgent need to intervene the problem. Hence MSS decided to go for a scheme that will break this cycle of fast by providing intermediate nutritious meals in the form of breakfast and afternoon milk and biscuits and also fortifying current meals with eggs.
MSS has successfully launched the scheme of provision of nutritious breakfast to children in special schools from July 17th, 2011 with the help of Anandwan dairy. Under this scheme, a plate of nutritious breakfast is served to all the children before the school starts at 8 AM daily. The breakfast includes a plate of Indian snacks such as poha, upama, idli or other items that are wholesome meals. In the afternoon, during school break, a glassful of milk (200 ml) with 2 biscuits is served.
Anandwan dairy prepares the breakfast and the milk for children and also arranges for distribution and storage of milk. Over the past six months it is evident that due to the intervention MSS now can take care of a deficit of upto 455-525 Kcal per day with the addition of a simple breakfast regime of the visually challenged and hearing and speech impaired unprivileged children.
A quarterly check of height for age, weight for age and hemoglobin levels indicates that there was a good amount of increase of weight of 2-2.5 Kgs and haemoglobin levels increased by 2-3 grams in every child, especially the ones under 7 grams. MSS expects to have haemoglobin levels of all the children above 10 grams in next six months which may be considered to be good indicators of project success.
70 % children who were in some grade of malnutrition, have crossed the malnutrition grade by +1. The head teacher and the councilor of the school said that, “Children look fresher, healthier, more active and happy. Their attendance level, attention span and over all participation level has increased in the school activities.
Children with disability are vulnerable to become malnourished once they go to their villages for holidays. Such type of nutrition project may provide them an opportunity to break free from the evil which will aid their overall development. However this will require continuous efforts to bridge the gap. Anandwan and TMF are exploring the possibility of making the milk supply sustainable. A concept of lending some funds from the project as revolving fund to the dairy which in turn will provide milk to the school on a sustainable basis is been explored. The dairy manager, school teacher and the project coordinator are very keen to explore this option.