In Bhakurguda village of Rayagada block, during a community monitoring process conducted by CYSD in the recent past, two prominent issues were raised by the community. First issue, the surrounding of the Aaganwadi Centre (AC) was very dirty and unhygienic which obviously not a good sign as the small children play and study there. The second issue was the defunct bore-well at the AC campus made the regular supply of clean drinking water to children a difficult task.

Bhakurguda village is coming under Rayagada block of Rayagada district. There are a total of 113 beneficiaries in the village with 7 pregnant women, 10 lactating mothers, 20 adolescent girls, 38 children under the age group of 6 months to 3 years and 38 children under the age group of 3 years to 6 years.

As part of the community monitoring of basic health services, facilitated by CYSD, both the service providers i.e. ASHA, AWW and service users, like pregnant women and lactating mothers were interacted separately. While digging out the issue in detail, it was found that due to defunct bore-well in the AC campus, the Anganwadi Worker used to go far away to collect water for drinking and cooking purposed. On the other hand, the AC was having 38 pre-school children and it became a tough task for her to collect sufficient water for children’s daily use. Even the beneficiaries i.e. mothers of pre-school children complained that many a times their children were not getting drinking water at the Anganwadi Centre. Secondly, the surrounding of the AWC was very unhygienic in nature which led to insect breeding. Most of the time, the children made complaints about insects bit too. These two reasons altogether resulted absenteeism of children at the AWC.

With this background, a village level interface was organized where the service providers and service users participated. The issues were taken as top priorities by both service providers and service users and a possible plan of action was formulated. In an action mode, the mothers’ committee took the responsibility to clean the surrounding of Aaganwadi Centre on every VHND. Similarly, for regular supply of clean drinking water to the AWC, it was decided to bring the case to the notice of local Sarpanch by submitting an application. The responsibility of writing the application and its submission was taken up by 10 mothers who will be assisted by a CRP of CYSD.

During the follow up process, it was found out that Adolescent club and 10 mothers who took up the responsibility to write application to the concerned Sarpanch for repairing of bore-well have submitted the application with the assistance of the CRP. As a result, all the bore wells of Bhakurguda village along with one at the AWC got repaired engaging self-employed mechanics of the nearby village. In addition, they were helped by the Youth Club & Adolescent Girl Club members, mothers of pre-school children and the ward member. Now, the availability of clean drinking is ensured at the Aaganwadi Centre. Likewise, cleaning of the Aaganwadi Centre has become a regular activity of the Mothers’ Committee involving most of the villagers as well.