Nanhe Kadam
Strengthening Early Childhood Development & Disability Support in DNH
Programme Highlights
About the Project
ACT started working in Dadra Nagar Haveli among underserved adivasi communities in the year 2017. Women empowerment project Samruddhi and children’s after school project Sakshartaa were doing well, bringing financial empowerment to women and education support to children. In 2018, we invited knowledge partner- Ummeed CDC and jointly, we observed that there were gaps and certain social and systematic issues that needed to be addressed urgently if children and their families needed to benefit long term from the work that ACT was doing in the community. After doing an intensive need-based assessment, we came to prioritise early childhood, which needed to be addressed if we aimed for a deep-rooted impact in the community.
We started working with children of ages between 0 – 6 years of age to address early delays and disabilities, which is rampant in DNH because of a lack of resources and parental education on child development. We have trained 4 members from the community to become Child Development Aides (CDA). More than 1800 children and families have been impacted by the interventions promoting early childhood development and therapeutic support to delayed or disabled children, close to their homes.