CRADLE - help 125 new & expectant Indian mothers

Success! We are excited to announce that six mothers have completed our 10 week Cradle Health Program in Kakkan Colony community. As mentioned in our previous reports, these workshops have been broken down to cover a variety of topics including nutrition, mental health, early child development and fears surrounding pregnancy. As Nithya (our Program Director), reflects upon this journey with these mothers, she is very positive that there is room to build a strong network of educated women and mothers within this community. She has three highlights from this batch of women that she would like to share with our supporters:

• “One of the mothers, Viji Akka, told me that she had stopped hitting and scolding her first baby because of our sessions and everything that she was learning. This made me feel like I was having a real impact on the mothers in this community.”
• “I tried to learn a lot about early child brain development because I knew this was something the mothers wanted to discuss. However, I was struggling to breakdown the complicated terminology and explain things in a simple way for the mothers. My co-worker (Nithya aka. Nutty) was very supportive and helped me understand the terms and plan accordingly. At the end of the 10 weeks, the mothers said that the information of early child brain development was their favourite topic and this made me very happy because I had put in a lot of work and time for this topic.”
• “At the end of every single session, Jayapradha Akka and Mahalakshmi Akka would ask me about next week’s topic so that they could think during the week and come prepared the following Saturday. Also, every Friday, I would get calls from the different mothers to confirm that the session would be happening the next day. This made me feel very happy and also motivated me to be responsible and plan ahead. It was a very nice experience to be working with such an enthusiastic batch.”

Planning ahead, we are in the process of hiring a Cradle Health staff member for Kakkan Colony community. Nithya is looking for a motivated and energetic woman, preferably from the community, to take up this position. Ideally, we hope to be hiring one of our recent graduates! This staff member will take on the responsibility of tracking and following up with the women (and their infants) that graduated from our program. This staff member will also be the primary point of contact should mothers be wanting to reach out on a weekly basis. Their third and most important responsibility will be to take a census of newly wedded women within the community and to accordingly start an awareness program for these young women on the consequences of early pregnancies and family planning. All of this would happen under the guidance and support of Nithya.

Additionally, as we look to grow our programming within Kakkan Colony, Nithya is already taking steps to ensure that this batch of women continue to play active roles in their community. Magalir Mattums (women-only spaces) have recently been introduced to Kakkan Colony community. Nithya was very impressed to see that the majority of the Cradle Health graduates not only attended, but brought neighbours, sisters and friends to this meeting. Nithya envisions Magalir Mattums in Kakkan Colony being safe and political spaces in which women discuss community issues and take action. Nithya hopes to be able to create strong ties between her Cradle Health Programming and Magalir Mattum meetings in the months ahead! More updates to come soon :)

P.s We hope to have Cradle Health up and running in our second community (Ramapuram) by April!