Ensuring Care, Enabling Work
The Crèche Program is a partnership between ShelterSquare Foundation and Aajeevika Bureau to provide well-designed daycare facilities that integrate child safety, health and nutrition, and early childhood development. Crèches are being developed for the children of migrant workers living at construction / industrial worksites and in informal bastis in Ahmedabad.
What we do
Our crèche model focuses on four critical aspects::
- Safety, Comfort & Functionality: A well-designed, climate-responsive crèche with separate spaces for babies and older children, kitchen, washing space, access to toilet, and an outdoor play space.
- Nutrition: 3 nutritious meals a day and regular growth monitoring. Creating linkages with ICDS for supplementary nutrition.
- Health and Hygiene: Regular health checkups and immunization through linkages with the Urban Health Center and ICDS; treatment for malnutrition; and hygiene sensitization among children and parents
- Education: Play-based learning; alphabets, numbers and objects; reading and writing; and linking children to formal education.
The crèches are also a platform to engage with women workers’ maternal and reproductive health, as well as to facilitate migrant workers’ linkages to government entitlements. These crèches enable women construction workers to work with the assurance that their children are in a safe and comfortable space, and their needs taken care of by trained and compassionate staff.
We have begun recording the activities and individual trajectories at our crèches in a structured manner, in order to develop a long-term view on the growth and educational progress of the children in our crèches.
A Few Glimpses of Our Existing Crèches
Our Partners in the Project
how we work with our developer and industrial partners
We work by establishing a close partnership with the developer / industry who builds the crèche facilities based on SSF’s crèche design options and guidance tailored to site conditions and available space. The developer / industry also contributes towards the crèche operational costs.