Introduction
Children are the future of any nation. It is they who will take forward the legacy and ambitions of the country. Investing in child development is the key to any nation's future success. Children's values, education, and health have a direct impact on a country's social and economic indicators, as well as its global standing. As a result, it is critical that children have access to civic, social, and moral education, as well as health care services and exposure to the most recent innovations in various fields.
These bright and creative minds have the ability to learn and evolve. In view of this, interactive events were organized at Kartavya Path on 19th-20th November 2022 under the aegis of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. Titled “Children as the Future of the Nation”, these events align with the goal of propagating education, health, and technology in the modern world and provide the audience with an opportunity to learn about the issues children face while growing up in today’s times.
Schemes and initiatives[1] of the Government of India
The Government of India, through the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD), has launched various schemes and initiatives for the development, protection, and welfare of children. The major schemes of MoWCD are ‘Mission Poshan 2.0’, ‘Mission Shakti’, ‘Mission Vatsalya’, and ‘Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)’. Under each, there are various other schemes and sub-schemes.
- Mission Poshan 2.0: is an integrated nutrition support program that aims to address the problems of malnutrition in children, adolescent girls, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. It also seeks to develop and promote practices that foster health, wellness, and immunity. Poshan 2.0 will also work to improve the Supplementary Nutrition Program's food quality and distribution system. Various schemes under this are Anganwadi services, a scheme for adolescent girls, and poshan abhiyan.
- Mission Shakti: envisions a unified citizen-centric lifecycle support for women that includes integrated care, safety, protection, rehabilitation, and empowerment to help women as they move through life's stages. Mission Shakti is divided into two sub-schemes: 'Sambal' (focused on women's safety and security) and 'Samarthya' (women's empowerment). The various schemes that focus on child development under this are Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, UJJAWALA, One Stop Centre, and Nirbhaya.
- Mission Vatsalya: India has 472 million children under the age of 18, accounting for 39% of the total population[2]. The mission of Mission Vatsalya is to ensure that every child in India has a healthy and happy childhood; to foster a sensitive, supportive, and synchronized ecosystem for child development; to assist States/UTs in carrying out the mandate of the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, and to achieve the SDG goals.
- Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS): The Ministry has been implementing the world's largest and most unique outreach program of ICDS for the holistic development of children, providing a package of services including supplementary nutrition, immunization, health checkup, and referral services, and pre-school non-formal education. Various sectoral programs are effectively coordinated and monitored. The Ministry has partnered with various NGOs and organizations for the successful implementation of this initiative.
[1] Schemes, Ministry of Women and Child Development, https://wcd.nic.in/
[2] Mission Vatsalya, https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1794595