According to UNICEF, a third of the world's malnourished children live in India. Sshrishti Chirag, a school in Ghata Village, Gurgaon provides education for undernourished children of migrant laborers who hail from the poorest sections of society. To supplement their learning, Sshrishti plans to provide free nutritious midday meals for nursery and kindergarten children. These meals are critical for improving their mental alertness, physical health, classroom engagement and overall happiness.
Every day, 25 million children in India go to bed hungry; 3000 die from malnutrition. In Ghata village, migrant labor families do not earn enough to feed and educate their children. Sshrishti Chirag, begun in 2015, emphasizes the affordable education of young children with a robust programme for early years education. Despite giving a gateway to learning, the school is in urgent need of providing healthy meals for the children, who are severely malnourished and find it difficult to concentrate.
The project aims to bring holistic development of the children of the community by providing 45 kindergarten students and 25 nursery children with a midday meal every day that includes a balanced nutritious diet and a glass of milk. Well nourished children have higher resistance to infection, are less likely to die from common childhood ailments like diarrheal diseases and respiratory infection, and experience significant improvement in learning ability.
The provision of meals will help in reducing the level of malnourishment amongst the children of the community, augment classroom engagement, and contribute to improved overall wellbeing. With enhanced learning abilities, the children will fare better in school, allowing their families to see the benefits of education and motivating them to keep their children enrolled in school for the long term.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
