SHILLONG, SEP 5: Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh on Tuesday informed that the government has decided to create another 3,000 anganwadi centres for implementation of the Meghalaya Childhood Early Development Mission (MCEDM) across the State.
The minister was attending the Play to Learn Summit organized by the Meghalaya Early Childhod Development Mission Society (MECDMS) at Windermere, Umpling here.
Speaking to media persons, Lyngdoh said that over 60,000 children in the various anganwadi centres have been covered under the mission. The aim of the mission is to develop a curriculum so that the anganwadi centres also become centres of learning and not just for nutrition alone.
The mission targets to reach out all the centres.
“In the first slot, we will be creating another 3,000 more centres in order to facilitate the mission to be introduced in those centres. At the end of five years, we target to covery every village in the State,” he said.
Lyngdoh said that the State government will be partnering with the Asian Development Bank (for implementation of the mission).
“Our conversation with them (ADB) have been very positive so far and we are sure that they will chip in and we can then share the details once we have signed an MoU with them,” he added.
Stating that the MCEDM launched last year is a first of its kind in the country, the minister said, “It was the initiative of our chief minister Conrad K Sangma, who had taken the vision to the Prime Minister of the country and had a very fruitful discussion with him and essentially the essence of the mission is that we encourage the early growth of children with special focus on their mental and physical being as the focal point of the mission.”
“It has been proven scientifically that the first 8 years of a child are the most important formative years including their capacity to think, their capacity to emphatize, so it helps children develop at their earliest stage and these critical formative years is what the mission is trying to capture and pay special attention to and not just on the nutritional aspects but also on their physical and mental well being,” he added.
Lyngdoh said that meghalaya had already practices gender equality before the world start talking about the issue.
“Before the rest of the world spoke about gender equality, we had practiced gender equality here in Meghalaya and you can see that the division of responsibilities between the two genders have been such that the rest of the world had to learn from Meghalaya,” he stated.
By our Reporter
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