The Anganwadi Project

The Anganwadi Project aims to rebuild and renovate 66 ‘anganwadi’ (pre-schools) in the slum areas of Ahmedabad, Gujurat, India.  The project is currently sending teams of qualified AWF volunteers to work in Ahmedabad for periods of six weeks up to four months. Volunteers are involved in designing, documenting and supervising the construction and repair of these anganwadis. Each anganwadi currently consists of crude one room galvanised or brick lean-to’s which have little or no ventilation and light. The anganwadis are constructed by local labourers and use largely re-cycled materials in order to support the Manav Sadhna philosophy of ‘Re-Use, Re-Cycle, and Reduce.’

The Anganwadi Project was initiated through the work of Jodie Fried, the founder of Bholu in 2005 after an nine-year association with the NGO Manav Sadhna, based in Ahmedabad. Over this period she has conducted workshops with the children in the slum communities of Tekra. Through these workshops Jodie became aware of the extremely poor conditions of the anganwadis, and she was inspired to rebuild anganwadi Bholu 1 with the help of Manav Sadhna.

Jane Rothschild, from AWF and Jodie Fried from Bholu joined forces in 2007, with AWF providing skilled volunteers and architectural support to the project. Architects Without Frontiers (Australia) is a not-for-profit volunteer organisation which provides Australian design expertise to communities, both within Australia and overseas helping communities in the construction of their physical and social infrastructure.

Through the financial contributions from the City Of Melbourne, Living Edge, Total Balance  and other private donations, AWF and Bholu have been able to set up an on-going program to send volunteers to work on re-building all 66 anganwadi in the slum areas. Currently, at August 2009, 7 Bholu Schools have been opened and another 1 is under construction, and in Season 2 we have 5 AWF volunteers scheduled for the 2009-2010 building season.

The project now relies on donations and fundraising to continue the project. Season 2 of the program commenced in Sept 2009 with a new team of volunteers until April 2010.