'Bringing Anganwadi Back on Track will be a Challenge'

Q: You told us about a COVID-positive person in your village? What happened after the identification?

AWW: Recently, we referred a person in our village to the Primary Health Centre for showing Coronavirus-related symptoms, where he tested positive.

The village was then sealed off. Doctors came from the hospital and inspected the whole village. We did not step out of our houses for two days; our regular activities completely stopped.

The patient was referred to Jaipur's SMS hospital where he tested negative. We were relieved!

Q: Are you delivering Take Home Ration (THR) to beneficiaries till 6 years of age? If so, are you able to manage this job apart from keeping track of households and awareness building on COVID-19?

AWW: We are not giving THR right now. We are providing 3 kgs of wheat to pregnant and lactating women, and 2 kgs of wheat to children.

This distribution is being done with the help of the ration dealer.

Right now we are mostly carrying out pandemic-related tasks. Apart from this is nutrition-related work, and no other work is being done at the Anganwadi Centre.

In the coming days, it would be a challenge for us to bring the centre's routine work back on track. Immunisations also did not take place in April.

Q: Did you receive Personal Protective Equipment (masks, gloves, sanitisers)?

AWW: We did not get these in the initial days. We received only masks and sanitisers last month.

This interview was conducted with an Anganwadi Worker in Jaipur, Rajasthan in Hindi on 13 May 2020, and has been translated.

Source: Quartz India