Food Security for 115 Families in COVID-hit Pune

The Waghri and Sikhligar communities have resumed their livelihoods slowly and cautiously, with the pandemic ebbing down. With schools, colleges and markets shut for close to two years, they have been at the epicenter of employment, fiscal and food insecurity. This was also trickling down to their children who were at risk of dropping out of education especially girls who were additionally vulnerable to early marriage and exploitation. Since a majority of Waghri and Sikhligar livelihoods depend on trading clothes, utensils and vegetables in the market, there was the pressing question of how to battle unemployment and subsequent challenges. Ashraya perceived that the only way children would be retained in education would be through regularized health and nutrition throughout, for each family we intervene with. In the last two years Ashraya has provided 3000+ food ration kits (including  and health and hygiene kits (including contraception, sanitary napkins, mother-baby kits) over 20 months to help sustain the educational, nutritional and health concerns within the communities. Ashraya has also providing regularized counselling for the children, with an average of 78 children being counselled weekly. In addition to this, at-risk children, who could not access three meals a day at home, were supplemented with lunch at the Ashraya center each day which has been extended to a totally of 150 children now that the center has resumed offline classes. A total of 20000+ fresh lunch meals have been provided to the children since January 2020 to battle food insecurity and hunger. Ashraya also conducted a health camp in February (baseline) and October (endline) to assess where the children stood with respect to their Body Mass Index levels and Hemoglobin levels. A few noteworthy statistics to mention here are that there is 140% increase in the number of children in the Normal hemoglobin category thus, decreasing the number of children in the Severe category. There is also a 43% decrease in students in the Underweight category and subsequent increase in the Healthy category. A significant achievement is that we ended the academic year with an average of 76% attendance for online classes and have started the academic year 2021-22 on a positive note with resuming offline classes since August. With 100% adults vaccinated with both COVID doses, we are looking at vaccinating all children in the Waghri and Sikhligar communities, in the age range of 15-18 years by March and booster shots for the adults later this year. Ashraya also managed to conduct regular weekly offline maternal health sessions in the last two years to ensure that infants don’t fall back on their physical and psycho-social development indicators and also advocated for access to legal and financial documentation for mother’s in the community. As we continue to ensure that there is access to education within the Waghri and Sikhligar communities, we appreciate the support we have been provided to ensure that these vulnerable families remain safe and healthy. 

Links:

• Ashraya: Transforming education for marginalised communities