Urban Creches

Background

Creches in urban areas primarily serve households residing in informal settlements. Many of these households comprise migrants from other states or districts who are engaged in informal sectors such as construction, domestic work, gig work, street vending, and security services. In some cases, these households consist of settled communities that have lived in the area for many generations.

Objectives

Similar to creches in rural settings, the urban creches also cater to children aged 7 months to 3 years, with a focus on providing safe environments, ensuring adequate nutrition, and facilitating health referrals for children who are malnourished/sick.

Contextual Differences in Operating Urban Creches

Urban creches operate in contexts that differ significantly from rural settings. Households in urban settlements typically represent heterogeneous communities, have informal and unpredictable employment patterns, face limited infrastructure availability, and higher cost of living. There are some aspects with rural creches, that will not apply here. For instance:

1. Working hours for mothers are very different.
2. Children come from diverse communities and varying mother tongues.
3. Malnutrition levels are not as stark as with rural creches; however
4. Mothers lack social and family support structures to take care of children and are therefore forced to take children to their workspaces in the absence of the community creche.
5. Often, finding secure creche spaces is a big challenge—especially in communities who live in housing made of tin sheets/tents.
6. Public systems for health referrals (equivalent of VHND, ASHA/ANM workers, anganwadi centers) are often dysfunctional/insufficient/too far away/not at all available.