Mobile Creches
Providing quality childcare for the poorest families in india
In 2021, just 19% of women in India participated in the labour force, a number that has been decreasing for years and that is well below the global average of 47%. The burden of unpaid care work is one of the main reasons why India is losing out on the contributions of half of its population (Banerjee, 2020). Women in India perform five times as much unpaid domestic and care work as men, the highest ratios in Asia-Pacific.
Moreover, over 90% of women in paid work in India are in the informal sector. At the bottom of the pyramid, women performing jobs such as construction workers or waste pickers, who are often migrants disconnected from any government service, often resort to bringing their children with them in their place of work, often in unsafe conditions. Others rely on older children (usually girls) to care for younger ones. This often leads to these girls missing out on their own education and employable skillsets, a disadvantage that follows them into adulthood: India has the highest number of child brides in the world, accounting for a third of the global total.
At the same time, in India, 32 million children under 6 years old live in extreme poverty. 1 in 3 children in India is underweight. 1 in 2 is anemic. In some states, less than 50% of children are enrolled in some early childhood education.
In response to these interconnected crises, MC provides quality and safe childcare services, based on international and national Early Childhood Development (ECD) standards, by setting up creches at worksites such as construction sites, tea gardens and stone quarries, with the support of the employers. Beyond the worksites, MC also runs creches at urban and rural poor areas, where informal women workers and deprived young children are concentrated. At the same time, MC trains other NGOs, community groups, employers, and government agencies in setting up Creches, providing scalable models they can replicate.
With the support of Be That Girl foundation, MC are going to expand their childcare services and step-up advocacy efforts for the government and the private sector to increase their contribution to make early childhood education an essential, sustainable backbone for India’s future.
Key numbers
In 2021/22:
363 childcare centers run or supported by Mobile Creches
Serving 12,283 children
6-8 hours of childcare provided every work day
2 locations running parenting programmes helping mothers and fathers adopt better childcare practices at home
100 middle level functionaries and 270 Anganwadi (child care centres) workers trained as ECD services providers
1,550 care jobs created for local women through ECD training
