Youth in Bijlon improve Anaganwadi and Health Services

The village of Bijlon is situated 12 km from the district headquarters. There are 360 families and its total population is 3500. The youth facilitators are Ms Vimla Kushwaha and Mr Umesh Tyagi

The Anganwadi did not open punctually and it did not provide quality services. The assistant did not call the children and the nutrition provided was of substandard quality. Both the boys and girls group decided to intervene. They started monitoring the Anganwadi and at the same time sought to convince parents to send their children to the Anganwadi. Initially the parents objected since they were not sure that their children would be properly treated in the Anganwadi but the youth assured them by taking responsibility for the children. They met the Anganwadi worker and asked her to improve services. Over the next few months the quality of nutrition improved and the assistant adopted the practice of escorting children from their homes to the Anganwadi. Earlier 10-15 children attended the Anganwadi but now 40-45 attend it.

The village has a sub health centre. However the coverage of vaccinations was very poor due to misconceptions among the parents and the refusal of the ANM to give advance information about the event to the villagers. The girls group met the ANM and put pressure on her to cooperate. At the same time they convinced the parents about the importance of getting their vaccinated and removed their mis-conceptions about vaccination. The team took out a survey and found that of the 52 children in the village 19 had not been vaccinated while 3 of `12 pregnant women had not received treatment. After the intervention by the adolescent girls group, these children and pregnant women who were left out got their vaccinations done.