In yet another populist move, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday launched two programmes, Shakti Varta and Nua Arunima, for the benefit of women and preschool children.
Shkati Varta is a demonstration of the commitment of the State Government and the DFID to deal with health, nutrition and water and sanitation and empowerment of communities, especially women, to drive their own development solutions, the Chief Minister said.
Shakti Varta would empower women through participatory learning and action on health, nutrition and water and sanitation initiative to energise the Mission Shakti movement in the State and improve their capacities to undertake development activities. Arunima is a preschool learning package to strengthen preschool education in Anganwadi Centres.
The community process initiative led by the Department of Women and Child Development, Shakti Varta, aims at empowering communities to take ownership of local problem identification and solution and stimulate higher quality.
It entails a high level of convergence on community process through collaboration between Mission Shakti, NRHM and Departments of Health, Women and Child Development and Rural Development supported by the DFID.
Shakti Varta targets to train 7,000 Shakti SHG members as facilitators, to work in 24,000 villages and reach more than 10 lakh women. More than 1,40,000 SHGs would be benefitted by the initiatives.
Shakti Varta would work directly with women SHGs, tap resources represented by women in communities and building on the success women have already achieved through activities such as savings, credit and promotion of income generation. It would also nurture and develop capacity for decision-making and contribute to community development.
Nua Arunima is based a teaching-learning package that provides a framework for an age appropriate curriculum that promotes play-based, experimental and child-friendly school readiness. It would provide toy banks, uniform, certificate for children and a holistic training programme for Anganwadi Workers.
The Chief Minister hoped that a kit prepared by the Unicef would strengthen preschool education, improve foundational skills of children, promote higher attendance in schools and facilitate completion of schools.
The Arunima kit provides training materials for Anganwadi Workers to conduct the activities at Anganwadi Centres for two hours a day. Nua
Arunima is also adapted in ten languages by the OPEPA, School and Mass Education, to promote mother tongue-based preschool education, Patnaik said.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Damodar Rout, Women and Child Development Minister Usha Devi, School and Mass Education Minister Rabi Narayan Nanda were among others present at the meeting.