Campaign
for our Right to Child Care
SEWA
has been campaigning for child care as an entitlement for all
women workers for some years now. We have been a founder-member
of FORCES ( forum for Creches and child care Services) In 196
we began the process of starting a Guajrat chapter of FORCES.
A state level meeting of several organisation involved in child
care was held and its recommendation widely circulated. Follow
up dialogue with state level planners and policy – makers
is continuing. In addition we have been pressing our demand
for child care as part of the government’s Minimum Needs
Programme and for appropriate budgetary allocations at both
state and central government levels.
This
year Gujarat Shishu Sangh ( Gujarat FORCES ) was formed through
an alliance of 50 organisation involved in child care in Gujarat.
SEWA is a founder member of this alliance. The campaign is also
pressing for locating creches in the primary schools in the
villages. This will encourage young children to start going
to school and will provide much needed space for the child care
centers. While this approach has official approval at the state-level
there is much resistance to it at the village level from school
principals and teachers who regard such integration as nuisance.
They view creches as a noisy and somewhat unhygienic activity
rather than a vital developmental input for children and a support
to poverty alleviation for families of working people.
