Mangnu Ram is a VV-PACS Correspondent from Bahadurpur village, Bihar. He belongs to one of the most marginalized communities in India, the Musahar community. This is one of the least documented and talked about communities of India. Having faced the heat of discrimination all his life Mangnu now wants to use his camera to tell stories of his people from…

Mangnu Ram

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In Bihar's Darbhanga district, over 20 children are trying hard to learn the basic numerics in a dilapidated hut. But it is proving difficult for these 6-year-olds as the heat intensifies on the thatching of the dilapidated hut. It comes as a shock that this dilapidated hut of Dhanalia village is a 'government-funded' anganwadi, a child-care centre. The abysmal state of Anganwadi was discovered by Community Correspondent Mangnuram in March 2016 when he went on a round of his district Goalpokhar.

It has been almost 10 years since the Anganwadi has been functional but Sahana Khatun, a worker in the centre reveals, "We have submitted numerous applications to the local authorities here but a solution is yet to be reached." According to Khatun, the government officials have said there is no land available for the construction of a child-care centre. The absence of a building and the extreme temperatures offer no respite to the children.

Launched in 1975, the integrated child Development Services (ICDS) scheme is one of the world’s largest programmes for early child development. Anganwadi centres are poor children’s play school and unless proper arrangements are made many centres would stop functioning for want of buildings. Apart from children, adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating mothers are also affected as these beneficiaries are unable to avail services.

Please call the Child Development Project Officer of Bahadurpur, Bihar on +91-9431005378 and demand that the children have a proper anganwadi building.

This video was made by a Video Volunteers Community Correspondent Mangnuram.

Community Correspondents come from marginalised communities in India and produce videos on unreported stories. These stories are ’news by those who live it.’ they give the hyperlocal context to global human rights and development challenges. See more such videos at www.videovolunteers.org. Take action for a more just global media by sharing their videos and joining in their call for change.