ICDS Project Research Articles

ICDS Nutrition Programme and Responsibilities of Self-Help Groups in Delhi-NCR

The ICDS Services is India’s response to the challenge of meeting the holistic need of every child. The ICDS is one of the world’s largest and most unique outreach programs for early childhood care and development with a prime focus to improve the nutritional and health status of children, reduce the incidents of mortality, morbidity, and school dropouts, guiding and motivating the mothers to take necessary steps to improve the health of their child. The initiative has been taken by the government to involve self-help groups to enhance the effectiveness and proper working system of ICDS services. The research study was important to suggest a new model for SHGs working under the ICDS project. It helped us to understand and evaluate the capacity of SHGs and assess the benefits provided to the beneficiaries and finally to provide some suggestions to develop a new model to make it more effective.

A study on the level of satisfaction of anganwadi workers towards work and family life

Future India is in the hands of healthy new born children which is more important than material resources. Anganwadi workers are functionary at AWCs who are recruited by ICDS Projects. The ICDS program aims at development of infants and children below six years, mothers and pregnant women for enhancing their survival. This study was conducted to find out the level of satisfaction of Anganwadi (AWWs) workers towards their work and family life.

Community participation in integrated child development services programme in rural Punjab

Realizing the great importance of bringing improvement in children and women's health and nutritional status, Integrated Child Development Services (ICSD) Scheme was launched on 2nd October 1975. The scope of present study is to evaluate the community participation in ICDS programme. In order to achieve the objectives of the present study, all three ICDS project: Barnala, Sehna and Mehal Kalan of the Barnala District of Punjab were selected for the study. A total of 30 villages (10 from each ICDS project) were selected on the basis of random. From each village Anganwadi Worker and village Sarpanch were selected for study. Thus a total of 30 Anganwadi Workers and 30 Villages Sarpanch was in the sample, from all 30 villages which were having Anganwadi for at least the last 25 years. It was disappointing to find that a majority (76.66%) of the AWWs did not receive any help from anyone in running the AWCs at village level. Half of the village Sarpanches did not make any contribution to the AWWs. It was also found that a majority (66.66%) of the village Sarpanches did not visit the AWCs at all. All (100%) village Sarpanches answered that there was no local committee formed to help the AWWs to conduct different activities and nor any organization like youth club or village school teachers or voluntary organizations at the village level to help the AWWs. In this regard, it is recommended that the training of project ICDS functionaries should be strengthened to impart them specific skills to elicit community participation and also need to have a short duration preparation phase to raise awareness of the community regarding ICDS services.

Reproductive Health Needs of Adolescent Girls in the Age Group of 15–19 Years in an Urban Slum of Mumbai

Background : Behaviours adopted during adolescence affect the reproductive health in the long run. Objectives: 1.To study the socio-demographic characteristics of adolescent girls.2.To study knowledge, attitude and behaviour of adolescent girls with reference to reproductive health issues .3.To explore the reproductive health needs of adolescent girls. Materials and Method : A list of all adolescent girls was obtained from ICDS project catering to the study area. Total 200 adolescent girls in the age group of 15-19 years were interviewed by systematic random sampling, maintaining full privacy, with prior consent using a pretested questionnaire containing structured, pre-coded and few open ended questions. The data was analyzed by using percentages and chi-square test. Results : Only 28.14% females had a prior knowledge of menstruation. About 11.5% mentioned that females determine the sex of the child. Less than half, 49.5% were aware about any family planning method. More than 3/4th adolescent girls interviewed knew about the principle modes of transmission of AIDS. Only 38.5% females were aware of the potential benefit of condom use in preventing HIV transmission.92% expressed the need to have detail information on conception and family planning. Interpretation and conclusions : A significant number of girls were unaware about the various reproductive health issues, ranging from menstruation, conception, contraception to STI'S and HIV-AIDS. Significant association was seen between their level of education and knowledge on HIV-AIDS and Myths about HIV.

Success Status of Government Development Programmes: An Experience from Cooch Behar District,West Bengal, India

Based on the demographic data of 2001 census, a total number of 4,612 revenue villages have been identified by the Panchayat and Rural Development Department, Govt. of West Bengal, India as the most backward in the state. Cooch Behar (one of the sub Himalayan district of the said state) also had declared 52 (fifty two) villages as backward in two consecutive phases. Some extra developmental impetus had been given in those villages to facilitate growth and prosperity. The present investigation was undertaken in the backward villages of Cooch Behar District of West Bengal (India) to study the success status of government development programmes running in the villages. A sample of 10% families was taken randomly for the study. Besides analyzing the secondary data obtained from ICDS projects (Integrated Child Development Project) and village Panchayat, an index called Composite Success Index (CSI) was developed for assessing the present status of success of the development programmes undertaken by the government agencies. The study revealed that the success of development programmes were low to medium in most of the villages. It is also revealed that success status is more where backwardness is more i.e. more backward villages achieved more success with respect to implementation of different development programmes.

Magnitude of Zinc Deficiency amongst Under Five Children in India

To estimate the prevalence of serum zinc deficiency in children of 6 months to 60 months of age. A community based cross-sectional study was conducted to collect the data to establish the prevalence of zinc deficiency in children in 6-60 months of age in five states namely, Uttar Pradesh(Northern region), Karnataka (Southern region), Orissa (Eastern region), Gujarat (Western region) and Madhya Pradesh (Central region) of the country. In each state, all the districts with ICDS scheme were enlisted and one district was selected with the help of Random number table (RNT). In each district, all the ICDS projects were selected and one ICDS project was selected with help of RNT. In the selected ICDS project, a cluster 5 Anganwadi centres (AWC) were selected. From the selected AWCs, three hundred children in the age group of 6-60 months were selected for the detailed study. A total of 1,655 subjects (836 males and 819 females) were included. The blood samples were collected from each child. The serum zinc estimation was done by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The overall prevalence of zinc deficiency in five states was 43.8% . The prevalence of zinc deficiency was highest in Orissa (51.3%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (48.1%), Gujarat (44.2%), Madhya Pradesh (38.9%) and Karnataka (36.2%). The present study revealed a high prevalence of zinc deficiency in children belonging to Low Socio-economic Index (LSI) in India.

Morbidity pattern and cause specific mortality during infancy in ICDS projects.

Etude des causes de mortalite, on constate que le tetanos et les maladies respiratoires sont les causes de mortalite les moins importantes. En moyenne un enfant est 14 fois malade par an ce qui correspond a 15 semaines par an