Melghat Mother & Childcare Project

The city of Nagpur is the geographic centre of India. About 6 hours drive west in the Satpura mountain range is an area known as ‘Melghat’.  The tribal people living in the area are known as the ‘Koku Tribes’ who live on forest products and basic or subsistence agriculture. Many of the 25 villages in the area are cut off during the monsoon season. Literacy rates amongst the 15,000 people living in the area is estimated to be less than 5%

Transport and communication between the Melghat villages and the outside world is almost non-existent. There is no electricity and in many villages no easy access to safe water. People have to walk many kilometres to reach nearby larger villages for any help or to buy basic needs. While the area is greatly disadvantaged the thing that Melghat is most known or renown for is the high death rate amongst infants and children under 5 from nutritional causes.

 Over the years many efforts have been made to deal with this problem but without real success. In 2003 the Nagpur Diocese of the Church of North India started the Mother and Child Care Program in 10 villages in the Melghat region.  One of the main differences between this program and other attempts to address the problem is that program staff live in the villages alongside the members of the community.

Over the first three years in each of the selected villages, a pre-school and nutritious feeding program was established along with the recruitment and training of village health workers. Special attention was given to providing pre and post natal care for mothers. An education program was started to address the fundamental issue of nutritional care of children.

Today in the 10 villages where the Mother and Child Care program operates the infant death rate due to poor nutrition has been reduced to zero. 

During this second three year period the program, with your help, will expand to cover other villages.