Shillong, Oct 29: Around 2,000 Anganwadi centres in the state would be upgraded into Early Child Development (ECD) centres with additional infrastructure and provisions for better care of pregnant mothers and children.
Funds from C&RD, MGNREGS and ADB would be utilised to build new ECD centres and upgrade existing Anganwadi centres into ECDs, said Sampath Kumar, principal secretary in-charge Health & Family Welfare after a review meeting on Monday.
“It is a project involving convergence of different programmes and projects but the purpose is how we can provide better support, better experience for the children and pregnant and lactating mothers,” he said.
As part of the ECD mission – Meghalaya is the first state to launch such a mission – IIT Bombay has already been roped in to provide training to mothers on effectiveness of breastfeeding techniques in order to provide better nutrition to the children.
“IIT Bombay has come up with an interesting and scientific method of teaching the caregivers and mothers of how actually one can address stunting through effective breastfeeding,” Kumar said.
Around 40 trainers have already been trained and more training will be held in future.
Meanwhile, to provide a better learning environment, top architects have been roped in to create innovative designs at the ECD centres.
Another organisation has been roped in to train ASHA and Aganwadi workers on how to monitor child development and identify the difficulties at an early stage to help them overcome.
“If you don’t identify (the problem in growth) at the early stage, at a later stage it becomes harmful in terms of disability,” he said.
