KHUSHI - a Creche for low-income kids in Dehradun, Uttarakhand
                        Kriti Astitva’s community-based programme
 
Background - Astitva, a women-centred community programme began in 2008, with a focus on empowering women and youth living in marginalised and low-income residential clusters and semi-rural clusters in South East Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The residents of the Astitva community are low-income migrant families (from the hilly areas in Uttarakhand, Bihar and Nepal) who live in the clusters around the Rispna river in Dehradun. The majority of adults work in the unorganised sector as domestic and construction workers, with low wages and insecure work.

Need Of Creche – Deep Nagar slum in Dehradun has around 10345 population and have 10 Anganbaris. But these Anganbaris keep children for a shorter period which doesn’t help working mothers as their working hours are longer. Creche has been a demand amongst unorganized workers parents where they can drop their children and work freely. Most of the women in the community are domestic workers or unorganized workers. They stop working while they have babies since there is no other option for mothers to leave and go to work.

Creche gives a safe place for these working low - income women to drop their children and go to work. Creche provides day care to the kids above a year as by that time they start eating food and start participating in the activities organized in the creche.

Safe and healthy social environment of the creche helps in children to grow secure and happy. This tender age of children makes them vulnerable to various mishappenings. Some mothers used to lock their children in small room and went to work. Some older siblings (mainly girls) were dropped out from their schools to look after their brothers or sisters. It affected physical and mental health of the child negatively which was realized later. Since the families have inconsistent work both the partners want to work to make better livelihoods for their families. 

We have run a creche until before the pandemic but could not continue it and now need support to set it up again. Here are the services that will be provided through this community based creche:
1. Safe and homely atmosphere to the kids
2. Trained care takers
3. Child friendly toys and activities
4. Healthy food for balanced growth
5. Medical and counselling support to the kids and parents
6. Legal assistance to the mothers (if facing gender-based violence)
Before Corona period we had been running the creche and had 30 children coming regularly. After the pandemic attacked the creche was stopped. Now the things are improving and life is retuning back to the normal pace, these working mothers are looking forward to this service. They pay a nominal amount against the services provided at creche by trained and professional team. Right now, we have 24 children waiting for the creche to be opened and their mothers are looking forward to start working as soon as the creche is open. The age group of children who will be in the creche is one to five years, mainly.

We look forward for donations to restart this venture providing support to the low- income women to live a dignified life with their families. This creche is not a support to the children or tor the mothers only but it will be a support to the whole family.

Thanking you in advance!

Email us on space.kriti@gmail.com for any queries and ask for Deepa Gupta