Swadhar IDWC

GRASSROOTS INNOVATION
ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
CAPACITY BUILDING

Swadhar IDWC

GRASSROOTS INNOVATION
ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
CAPACITY BUILDING

Overview

Swadhar, founded by Dr. Meenakshi Apte in 1983, empowers women in distress and champions comprehensive early childhood development. The organization operates with the belief that ‘empowering women leads to a developed society, ensuring that women and children in underserved communities receive essential support for growth and wellbeing.

Program focus

Swadhar’s Khelghar Vikas Prakalp engages parents and the community on the importance of early childhood development for children between 1 to 6 years old. The program includes:

Providing a safe space (“Khelghar”) where children can engage in structured and free play, while parents observe and bond with them.
Demonstrating play based activities that promote physical, cognitive, emotional, and social growth. Mapping the developmental milestones so that early intervention measures can be taken up to address the issues.
Conducting awareness sessions for parents and caregivers to highlight the importance of early childhood education.
Organizing community outreach initiatives to promote early learning and development.

Program Objectives and Goals:

Improve parental and caregiver involvement and awareness in the child’s developmental journey.
Equip facilitators with updated knowledge and skills.

Engagement with Bansuri

Enhancing the project’s impact beyond grantmaking by:

Providing strategic support to identify gaps in implementation and improve program outcomes by engaging a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) expert for a 6 mths period, to strengthen impact evaluation and capacity building at Khelghar.
Encouraging a scientific approach to impact assessment, including baseline assessments and process mapping.
Promoting innovative ideas to develop a model of excellence and benchmarking that aligns with global best practices in early childhood care and education (ECCE).
Facilitating a structured Theory of Change discussion to refine Swadhar’s long term strategy and ensure measurable progress

Outcomes

Khelghar, is a dedicated space in the community, providing a secure, child-friendly space where mothers and children could spend quality time together. In many households, addiction among family members created a toxic home atmosphere, depriving children of the calm and positive stimulation essential for healthy growth. Early exposure to toxic stress can severely impact brain development and long-term emotional and cognitive outcomes. Safe, consistent interactions at Khelghar could help mitigate these risks, fostering bonding, emotional security, and a strong foundation for lifelong learning and well-being.

Parents & caregivers, who regularly attended Khelghar sessions showed increased awareness, interest & initiative in their child’s development. Many were making simple toys at home, using everyday accessible materials which reduced the need for store-bought toys.

Developmental milestones observed in children:

Cognitive: recognition of pictures, early categorization and sequencing.
Language: names toys and animals independently.
Social-emotional: seeks interaction & builds a bond with caregiver and centre staff.
Adaptive behavior: returns toys to designated places showing self-regulation.

Milestones observed in parental engagement: