As Delhi reels under heat, Anganwadi workers ask: ‘Why can’t we get vacations?’
Faizan, 1, is barefoot as he slowly props himself up, holding the wooden bench with his tiny hands. He can’t form words yet but has already started to attend the Anganwadi centre.
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Activist Priyambada Sharma with terminated Anganwadi worker Punita Jha“Chidiya karti chir chir chir…(Birds go chirp chirp chirp…),” 4-year-old Savia flaps her arms and recites a poem. She has learnt these words in an Anganwadi centre at Jamia Nagar and pronounces each of them perfectly. Her mother Nazia Parveen, 25, sits on a warped wooden bench outside, in a lane that opens to the Okhla Vihar main road. It is around noon. “Tota… (parrot)” Dilshad, 5, mumbles. He scratches his head as he tries to remember the poem, but quickly switches to numbers instead: “One, two, three… ten”. Dilshad tries to compete with his sister, Savia.
Faizan, 1, is barefoot as he slowly props himself up, holding the wooden bench with his tiny hands. He can’t form words yet but has already started to attend the Anganwadi centre.
Ordinarily, on a Thursday afternoon, the children would sit on the Anganwadi premises and be fed a nutritious, hot, cooked meal by Anganwadi workers or helpers. However, in a first, the Women and Child Welfare Department in Delhi issued an order on Monday for all Anganwadi centres to remain shut until June 30, citing heat wave conditions.
Supplementary nutrition food packages for 6 months to 3 years old children
Even though meals are not being served at the centres, workers have to go door to door to deliver packaged dry rations.
In an Anganwadi hub in Okhla, three workers and helpers cover one block. Smaller blocks have one worker and a helper each. With the centres shutting down, they try to finish supplying the packages by 11 am. Ordinarily, children who come to the centres are taught basics such as letters, words and numbers, and given hot meals.
Monthly progress reports have to be maintained for each centre.
In another centre in Saket, an Anganwadi worker, who has been working since 1997 and knows all the families in the area, waits for people to turn up to collect the packaged food.
Priyambada Sharma, convenor of the Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union, says the workers and helpers barely have time to catch a break. “In addition to supplying food door to door during peak hours, this month they have also been directed to take a population survey for the government in which one person may be in charge of over 2,000 people.”
The grassroots workers are supposed to work from 9 am to 2 pm but usually end up working longer hours. “It is good that at least the children got holidays, but we also need holidays at least for 10 days. If the government and private school teachers and students can get vacations, why can’t we?” says an Anganwadi worker who did not want to be named.
Another worker complained that centres do not have basic necessities in place. “We aren’t even provided with drinking water; we have to bring it from our homes. There are no fans, the toilet is dirty, but what can we do?” She says.
Vrishali, a member of the Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union, put forward the demand of the collective that the heat wave conditions have affected all, adding there should be a relief to the Anganwadi workers and helpers to ensure their well-being.
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