'Nurturing Neighborhoods Challenge' in Indore to boost all-round development for children

Evolving as one of the most enterprising cities in India, Indore has become a hub of innovative initiatives that assure welfare for all its residents. Living up to its name, the city has made it to the list of 25 cities earmarked for the project called 'Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge'. Launched under the Smart Cities Mission of the central government, this scheme is being implemented in association with the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF), with technical assistance from WRI India.

Pilot projects in the 1st stage for boosting children's development

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The objective of this initiative is to promote friendly-neighbourhoods that are conducive to facilitating better development amongst children, aged 0-5, in the early stages of life. It is proposed that a pilot execution would be conducted over the period of the next six months to evaluate the first stages of execution. The scheme would devise and implement trials taking into consideration the suggestions and the proposals of the local residents. With the help of technology and capacity building, the projects will be amplified for implementation at wider levels.

According to the statements given by Joint Secretary and Mission Director, Smart Cities Mission, the project attempts to highlight the importance of local community-based interventions. It would act towards creating better and more supportive environments for addressing the needs of young children. Integrated with the idea behind the smart city mission, this flagship scheme would help in bringing citizen-driven development at the local level which would have the potential of being scaled up to greater levels.

Indore's application selected amongst 63 submissions from diff. cities

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In the first round of the challenge, applications were invited from all Indian cities. The submissions given by 63 cities from across the country proposed neighbourhood-level pilot projects to boost comprehensive development for young children. In addition to this, they also talked about addressing the needs of their caregivers. Indore has been able to secure a spot in the list of selected cities through its interesting and far-sighted proposal.

During the three-month application period, more than 100 cities have participated in interactive discussions and capacity-building workshops. Other than Indore, the cities selected for this initiative include Agartala, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Dharamsala, Erode, Hubballi-Dharwad, Hyderabad, Jabalpur, Kakinada, Kochi, Kohima, Kota, Nagpur, Rajkot, Ranchi, Rohtak, Rourkela, Salem, Surat, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruppur, Ujjain, Vadodara and Warangal. After the pilot of six months, 10 winning cities shall receive support for large-scale implementation.

-With Inputs from IANS